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More Fuel for the Self-Driving Car Fire
Just came across this article this morning. I’ll highlight one paragraph and add emphasis:
The linked report suggests that the artificial intelligence may never be “intelligent” enough to do what human beings are generally capable of doing. (Well, not all of us, of course. A couple of days driving in Florida will tell you that.) That may be true in some ways, but more than raw “intelligence,” the AI systems do not have human intuition. They aren’t as intuitive as humans in terms of trying to guess what the rest of the unpredictable humans will do at any given moment. In some of those cases, it’s not a question of the car not realizing it needs to do something, but rather making a correct guess about what specific action is required.
I’ve made this argument before, that humans are better at winging it than AI — so far.
Admiral Rickover was pretty much against using computers to run the engine room, with a couple of exceptions. Any task that was deemed too monotonous was one, the other being any task that could be performed quicker by a computer. Even so, these weren’t really computers in the AI sense, but rather electronic sensors with programming to handle the task at hand. I’m sure modern submarine engine rooms have more computerization nowadays, but I’ll bet the crew can easily take over if the machines fail . . .
Published in Technology
I was once told by a former railway worker that the human engineer is there to be a witness in the event of a collision. They are legally required to watch as they turn the poor people in the station wagon into salsa.
I have never fact-checked the claim.
You can use it below highway speeds on streets sometimes, too.
The only problem is if you switch between cars a lot, and one car has it and the other doesn’t, you have to constantly remind yourself that you need to hit the brakes when driving the car without it.
And in fact it’s
worsemore interesting even than that. It’s possible (or it was as recently as a few years ago, and probably still is) to create signs that are effectively unintelligible to humans, but that contain the visual elements on which automated driving systems cue. This allows all sorts of mischief, as deceptive driving and navigation cues can be embedded in apparent graffiti or what appears to be mere advertising.“Sounds like fun!” – Captain Kirk
Tracks don’t go everywhere. Trucks do . . .
I like the radar-assisted cruise control. However, sometimes it slows my car down when the car in front of me goes off an exit ramp or a turn lane . . .
That is so true . . .
Radar works best for velocity. Cameras detect objects and people better and they can widen the field of effectiveness. Lasers are similar to cameras in effect.
Subaru has a dual camera system without the other two modalities. It works really well except it can be jerky in some adaptive cruise control situations. Apparently the new ones don’t do that now. The customer satisfaction is very high.
There’s another potential problem with this kind of driver assistance (which, by the way, I still enjoy; I use cruise control almost all the time, even though mine is not adaptive in any way). It lulls the driver.
That’s probably my biggest problem with self-driving and semi-self-driving technology: they encourage the mind to wander.
We all know that we’re not supposed to be holding phones up to our ear while driving. In many states that’s illegal — here in New York, it’s a capital offense: you can be pulled over and shot by the side of the road without trial if you do it twice.
Anyway, there are studies that suggest that even talking on a hands-free phone causes about the same level of distraction as holding a phone up to your head. I don’t think that’s surprising: we focus on the conversation when we’re on the phone, and that must necessarily distract from driving. (Shoot, back when I listened to a radio while driving, I’d have to turn the radio off when navigating an unfamiliar area, just to avoid getting lost.)
It seems likely to me that, the less attention you think you have to pay to the environment, the less attention you will pay to the environment. Sometimes that might be a good trade, but I don’t know that we’re there yet — and certainly not for poorer drivers who are already struggling to pay attention.
(Second thought, strike that last bit: it may be poorer drivers who actually do benefit from any technology that will make up for their lack of attention.)
It’s the “last mile” thing, like I said before. But that’s not long-haul. And there could be even less of the long-haul trucking than there is now, if regulation didn’t block additional rail construction, maybe just by making it unaffordable.
Antifa
One of our cars has a “collision is imminent” warning that often goes berserk when the car in front of me is turning into a driveway. I can tell the car will be well out of the way by the time I get to the driveway, but the computer just sees that right now there’s something in my lane and assumes I will hit it if I don’t brake quickly.
It happens with my 2019 Subaru, but it’s not common. I find all of the warning beeps helpful. The rate outright and the rate versus what are effectively false signals isn’t that bad.
I have a feeling that the pure camera system trades some jerky performance in adaptive cruise control for a little bit better false-ing rate. The new ones are supposed to be better about this.
If you’re thinking about Subaru, your first filter is, if you don’t get a turbo, it’s usually going to have lousy torque. Once you get past that, it’s definitely worth a look. *Along those lines, I would never get one without the button that adjusts the gearing of the CVT.
*with turbos, it might not matter. I don’t know.
Also, if you don’t like the handling, they handle really well under emergency conditions. There are all kinds of videos showing this.
I’ll get you started. Intelligence is the facility of prediction. General intelligence is the ability to make predictions in any environment.
I never know whether to say it’s a faculty or facility. I’d appreciate advice.
We’re going to wish it was a SI. HAL won’t be heuristic or algorithmic, more like some homo at law in a DC office building.
Facility, faculty, ability — I get your meaning.
Okay. So, again, what do you consider to be something that distinguishes Artificial Intelligence from Synthetic Intelligence?
And if you’re just using the two different terms in order to communicate a degree of intelligence, that’s fine. I’d understand that. But my impression is that you have something more fundamental in mind, that you see the two kinds of intelligence as differing in quality in some important way.
What would such a road network cost? A whole new interstate highway system? For what? The efficiency gain of driverless trucks?
I think it would be a lot easier, faster, and less expensive to add more railroad capacity especially in freeway medians that already have the space and little or no hassle with ownership etc.
If the expected shortage of drivers materializes and if there is no option to use driverless trucks on existing highways, what are the options? Railroads or a stripped-down highway system that is used exclusively by efficient hybrid driverless trucks. I don’t see any other options, though this is not my area of expertise.
The other option maybe preferred by TPTB might be to use the existing highways for driverless trucks, once they get all of us plebes off it and safely locked into our
homestiny government apartments.I was gonna say, “Don’t give the bastards any ideas”, but I suspect they’ve already thought of it.
I’ve long had a (totally unworkable) theory that all interstates should be built with three sets of lanes instead of two, so that they can close one set and do roadwork/maintenance and/or deal with collisions and disabled vehicles without interfering with traffic flow.
California’s high speed rail.
One problem there – one among several – is that freight goes to different places than people.
My youngest loves trains and we recently utilized the Sun rail system… in a backward way, but still, we took a train ride. It was quite nice and I enjoyed it. My only irritation is that it still requires the suburbs to drive in. Which may be why it is completely under utilized. It was cheap and pleasant, but empty.
The traffic issue is suburban commutes, so I can’t figure out why there aren’t suburban connections at all.
“City planners” etc seem to have less-than-practical motivations in many cases. They get “brownie points” for setting up rail systems even if – due to having to work out property purchases etc – they might end up not going anywhere very useful. I think that’s actually something in favor of using the freeway medians etc for freight rail, because long-haul freight origins and destinations are more concentrated to start with – between warehouses, etc – and that can help free up especially short-distance road traffic for people who need it more.
We’ve got them already. They’re called “railroads.”
Autonomous trains would be a lot simpler than autonomous automobiles.
Oh you must, it is indeed wonderful. My truck is only good down to about 25 mph but my Subbie handles stop and go very well. I rarely touch a pedal in my commute.