Self-driving cars are older than you think.
There is a great deal of publicity and there are some very high expectations surrounding the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create Autonomous Vehicles (AV) that will drive themselves and perhaps not even utilize a driver as back up.
Investors are pouring money into development of driverless technology to move people efficiently and comfortably, especially in urban areas.
States such as Arizona are allowing tests of such vehicles for certain purposes, and Arizona has created an Institute for Automated Mobility.
But is all this really new? How much will truly come to pass?
Early examples
It turns out that the automated car was invented by German scientist Ernst Dickmanns in 1986, using a Mercedes-benz van. He first tested it at the university he worked at, then in 1987, tested it on the Autobahn at speeds up to almost 60 mph, then tested it on a passenger car in France in 1994.
In 1995, he went on to test another vehicle on the Autobahn, this time traveling 1,000 miles at speeds up to 100 mph. But interest and funding waned, and Dickmanns’ AV was forgotten.
Sebastion Thrun, a German computer scientist, was next to come out with an AV, in 2005, at Stanford University in California. But we didn’t hear anything more about his car, either, although he did become a VP at Google (now CEO of The Kitty Hawk Corporation,
Are we ready to give up control?
From the major car manufacturers to Google, Amazon and Microsoft, more than 40 companies are working on autonomous vehicles. But will they fly? (In numbers, at least, if not literally —not quite ready for the Jetsons, although some think they will actually, eventually, fly.) Another looming question: Are we ready to give up control to the machines?
There’s a case for doing so. If you look in your rearview camera, it is not difficult to see that the camera has a better, clearer range of vision than a human driver (except when it’s covered with snow or mud).
The same can be said for blind spot monitors and perhaps even for pedestrian-detector sensors in the front. Vehicles already have technology that adjusts brakes, automatically changes headrests if there is an accident, and so on. We have rain-sensing wipers and cruise control that can slow down or stop as needed. But eliminating the steering wheel or a driver as back up, is another thing altogether.
Especially as we transition (or if we transition) to AVS, with a mix of AV and driver-controlled vehicles on the road, there are tremendous safety issues. And as good as AI may be, can it make judgments between two bad outcomes (e.g. hitting a pole or a pedestrian)? Is it best just for highways, and not city driving? Does it discourage use of public transportation, if one can be transported privately (creating more congestion)? Or does it provide a much safer transportation option than human driving judgment, which we know is often poor and distracted?
These questions and many more will need to be answered before we will see large numbers of these vehicles on public roads.
So, for those of you who don’t like to drive, you may be waiting a while, and for those of you who love to take a long drive down a country road with the windows open and the music on, and your own hands both on the wheel, have at it.