MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving.
The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.
With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation. The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light.
Autonomous cars are years from mass production, but technologists who have long dreamed of them believe that they can transform society as profoundly as the Internet has.
Robot drivers react faster than humans, have 360-degree perception and do not get distracted, sleepy or intoxicated, the engineers argue. They speak in terms of lives saved and injuries avoided — more than 37,000 people died in car accidents in the United States in 2008. The engineers say the technology could double the capacity of roads by allowing cars to drive more safely while closer together. Because the robot cars would eventually be less likely to crash, they could be built lighter, reducing fuel consumption. But of course, to be truly safer, the cars must be far more reliable than, say, today’s personal computers, which crash on occasion and are frequently infected.
The Google research program using artificial intelligence to revolutionize the automobile is proof that the company’s ambitions reach beyond the search engine business. The program is also a departure from the mainstream of innovation in Silicon Valley, which has veered toward social networks and Hollywood-style digital media.
During a half-hour drive beginning on Google’s campus 35 miles south of San Francisco last Wednesday, a Prius equipped with a variety of sensors and following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system nimbly accelerated in the entrance lane and merged into fast-moving traffic on Highway 101, the freeway through Silicon Valley.
It drove at the speed limit, which it knew because the limit for every road is included in its database, and left the freeway several exits later. The device atop the car produced a detailed map of the environment.
The car then drove in city traffic through Mountain View, stopping for lights and stop signs, as well as making announcements like “approaching a crosswalk” (to warn the human at the wheel) or “turn ahead” in a pleasant female voice. This same pleasant voice would, engineers said, alert the driver if a master control system detected anything amiss with the various sensors.
The car can be programmed for different driving personalities — from cautious, in which it is more likely to yield to another car, to aggressive, where it is more likely to go first.
Christopher Urmson, a Carnegie Mellon University robotics scientist, was behind the wheel but not using it. To gain control of the car he has to do one of three things: hit a red button near his right hand, touch the brake or turn the steering wheel. He did so twice, once when a bicyclist ran a red light and again when a car in front stopped and began to back into a parking space. But the car seemed likely to have prevented an accident itself.
When he returned to automated “cruise” mode, the car gave a little “whir” meant to evoke going into warp drive on “Star Trek,” and Dr. Urmson was able to rest his hands by his sides or gesticulate when talking to a passenger in the back seat. He said the cars did attract attention, but people seem to think they are just the next generation of the Street View cars that Google uses to take photographs and collect data for its maps.
The project is the brainchild of Sebastian Thrun, the 43-year-old director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a Google engineer and the co-inventor of the Street View mapping service.
In 2005, he led a team of Stanford students and faculty members in designing the Stanley robot car, winning the second Grand Challenge of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a $2 million Pentagon prize for driving autonomously over 132 miles in the desert.
Besides the team of 15 engineers working on the current project, Google hired more than a dozen people, each with a spotless driving record, to sit in the driver’s seat, paying $15 an hour or more. Google is using six Priuses and an Audi TT in the project.
The Google researchers said the company did not yet have a clear plan to create a business from the experiments. Dr. Thrun is known as a passionate promoter of the potential to use robotic vehicles to make highways safer and lower the nation’s energy costs. It is a commitment shared by Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, according to several people familiar with the project.
The self-driving car initiative is an example of Google’s willingness to gamble on technology that may not pay off for years, Dr. Thrun said. Even the most optimistic predictions put the deployment of the technology more than eight years away.
One way Google might be able to profit is to provide information and navigation services for makers of autonomous vehicles. Or, it might sell or give away the navigation technology itself, much as it offers its Android smart phone system to cellphone companies.
But the advent of autonomous vehicles poses thorny legal issues, the Google researchers acknowledged. Under current law, a human must be in control of a car at all times, but what does that mean if the human is not really paying attention as the car crosses through, say, a school zone, figuring that the robot is driving more safely than he would?
And in the event of an accident, who would be liable — the person behind the wheel or the maker of the software?
“The technology is ahead of the law in many areas,” said Bernard Lu, senior staff counsel for the California Department of Motor Vehicles. “If you look at the vehicle code, there are dozens of laws pertaining to the driver of a vehicle, and they all presume to have a human being operating the vehicle.”
The Google researchers said they had carefully examined California’s motor vehicle regulations and determined that because a human driver can override any error, the experimental cars are legal. Mr. Lu agreed.
Scientists and engineers have been designing autonomous vehicles since the mid-1960s, but crucial innovation happened in 2004 when the Pentagon’s research arm began its Grand Challenge.
The first contest ended in failure, but in 2005, Dr. Thrun’s Stanford team built the car that won a race with a rival vehicle built by a team from Carnegie Mellon University. Less than two years later, another event proved that autonomous vehicles could drive safely in urban settings.
Advances have been so encouraging that Dr. Thrun sounds like an evangelist when he speaks of robot cars. There is their potential to reduce fuel consumption by eliminating heavy-footed stop-and-go drivers and, given the reduced possibility of accidents, to ultimately build more lightweight vehicles.
There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land.
And, of course, the cars could save humans from themselves. “Can we text twice as much while driving, without the guilt?” Dr. Thrun said in a recent talk. “Yes, we can, if only cars will drive themselves.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/scien ... irect=true
Spazz Arcane wrote:If birds could swim and fish could fly I would awaken in the morning to the sturgeons cry. If fish could fly and birds could swim I'd still use worms to fish for them.
IN this forum in March 08 I predicted amongst other things the virtual end of the private motor car...
Other elements in my scheme are: GPS. self-parking cars. on-board radar. Leading eventually to self-driving cars. And once the driving is done by the car, the pride of ownership will fall - and when you can call up the vehicle you want when you want, the size you want, for the time you want, few will bother with all the peripheral hassle of owning a car which they don't control anyway.
...and here's something from the NY Times article.
There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land.
jonesthecurl wrote:IN this forum in March 08 I predicted amongst other things the virtual end of the private motor car...
Other elements in my scheme are: GPS. self-parking cars. on-board radar. Leading eventually to self-driving cars. And once the driving is done by the car, the pride of ownership will fall - and when you can call up the vehicle you want when you want, the size you want, for the time you want, few will bother with all the peripheral hassle of owning a car which they don't control anyway.
I doubt it.
People don't want to share the public's filthy stinking auto.. I want an auto with my own filth and stink
HapSmo19 wrote:Will drunk driving become a thing of the past?
It's a possibility. More importantly: will auto insurance become a thing of the past as long as you're riding along in one of these?
Something tells me 'no'. So f*ck 'em.
2dimes wrote:Obama will own them all and pay for them with tax money. People will leave them dirtier than a public urinal.
Yea.. /sigh
Spazz Arcane wrote:If birds could swim and fish could fly I would awaken in the morning to the sturgeons cry. If fish could fly and birds could swim I'd still use worms to fish for them.
If we were to be rational we'd let there be a choice for who wants to pay for cars and who wants to use the government option. I like this advance in technology. HEre's hoping it'll come soon :3
Vote: Mandy
Eddie35: hi everyone
Serbia: YOU IDIOT! What is THAT supposed to be? Are you even TRYING to play this game?! Kill the idiot NOW please!
Skoffin wrote: So um.. er... I'll be honest, I don't know what the f*ck to do from here. Goddamnit chu.
jonesthecurl wrote:...and here's something from the NY Times article.
There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land.
Fircoal wrote:If we were to be rational we'd let there be a choice for who wants to pay for cars and who wants to use the government option. I like this advance in technology. HEre's hoping it'll come soon :3
Ugh. I think we already have these. They're called taxis.
jonesthecurl wrote:...and here's something from the NY Times article.
There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land.
Fircoal wrote:If we were to be rational we'd let there be a choice for who wants to pay for cars and who wants to use the government option. I like this advance in technology. HEre's hoping it'll come soon :3
Ugh. I think we already have these. They're called taxis.
A bit different..
Spazz Arcane wrote:If birds could swim and fish could fly I would awaken in the morning to the sturgeons cry. If fish could fly and birds could swim I'd still use worms to fish for them.
jonesthecurl wrote:...and here's something from the NY Times article.
There is even the farther-off prospect of cars that do not need anyone behind the wheel. That would allow the cars to be summoned electronically, so that people could share them. Fewer cars would then be needed, reducing the need for parking spaces, which consume valuable land.
Fircoal wrote:If we were to be rational we'd let there be a choice for who wants to pay for cars and who wants to use the government option. I like this advance in technology. HEre's hoping it'll come soon :3
Ugh. I think we already have these. They're called taxis.
Taxis are paid for by taxes and the users?
I think the most likely comparison are buses, but bettar.
Vote: Mandy
Eddie35: hi everyone
Serbia: YOU IDIOT! What is THAT supposed to be? Are you even TRYING to play this game?! Kill the idiot NOW please!
Skoffin wrote: So um.. er... I'll be honest, I don't know what the f*ck to do from here. Goddamnit chu.
Speaking of computer-controlled aspects of the car, does anyone get tired of that traction control system that kicks in and controls the tires and braking while doing hard turns?
I can't stand that thing. It only limits my control of the car and the performance. "I know how to drive my car, god damnit!"
Same with the automatic locks that lock after driving the car for 10 seconds or after putting it into drive. "Leave my shit alone," I yell at the computer, which acts all innocent.
And now this shit? I wonder when people will become so totally reliant on technology that they'll forget how to wipe their asses. Look at the iPhone, or any smartphone. memory-related tasks? Record that stuff, write a note.
