Artificle Intelligence in Cars-2- 

^click to see cool poster overview and below we go into detail.

 

What are Autonomous Vehicles?

An autonomous vehicle combines cameras, sensors, radar technology and artificial intelligence in order to drive itself without the need of a human to be present. A vehicle must be able to navigate through normal roads and not just roads specifically designed for it without a human to be classified as fully autonomous. Many companies such as BMW, Audi, Ford, Volkswagen, General Motors, Tesla, and Google have started to develop and test autonomous vehicles.

Autonomous vehicles are powered by artificial intelligence technologies. A system that will autonomously drive vehicles is developed with wide amounts of data from image recognition systems as well as neutral networks and machine learning. The data is identified by the neutral networks and then fed to the machine learning algorithms. The neutral networks identify things such as images of stop signs, streetlights and pedestrians.

An example of a vehicle that is almost fully autonomous is Google’s Waymo project. A human driver is still required to be in the car but only to take over when needed. It is not entirely self-driving, but it is highly autonomous and is able to drive itself in optimal conditions. (Lutkevich, Botelho, 2019)

AI Industry Current and Future

There are many developments that are to be made before AI is fully implemented in all cars. Currently, AI is used for risk assessment and driver assistance instead of the vehicle being totally autonomous. It is generally just used to attempt to prevent human errors made on the road. It can also help better manage any issues that come up with the car itself and perform tasks such as optimizing battery performance on its own.

As the technology with AI progresses, the number of autonomous vehicles will also progress. It is predicted that by the year 2030, around 95% of new cars will have AI installed (FutureBridge, 2020). The problem is that there are many things that must be resolved before AI can become more common. The technology itself must be further tested and advanced but aside from that, the new laws that would have to be added or changed would have to be put in place as well. This includes who would be held liable for any incidents with the AI cars and also for insurance reasons.  Overall, if the industry continues to develop and have more advancements in their technology, AI vehicles will become the new normal.

People’s Opinions on Anthonomus Vehicles

An article by The Quartz states that even though Americans realize that autonomous vehicles are an inevitable form of transportation in the future, less than half of them would end up riding in one. This is due to the huge change in the whole premise of driving that has been performed by millions, the same regular way on a daily basis for decades. This huge change is what makes humans paranoid as they tend to take time to adapt to change.

A case went viral last year in March where a tesla model S crashed when it was in autopilot mode, killing the passenger in it. Since this incident, many customers have reconsidered using this feature in their teslas. An article published by Wired quotes tesla when they said, (Rouse, 2019) “the driver is supposed to keep his hands on the wheel and monitor the road, too,” proving the fact that tesla had already warned their customers to be extra careful and vigilant when using this feature.

A survey was conducted by Statista on the concerns of consumers regarding autonomous vehicles; In which many people talked about their fear of safety when using this driving option. Others mentioned their preference to be in control of the car while some were concerned about their cars losing control by hackers breaching their security. These were some of the many concerns people addressed over thousands of websites and social media when autonomous vehicles started to gain popularity.

 

Social Ethical Issues with AI in Cars.

The goal for Artificial Intelligence is too make better decisions to what a human would make. If Ai can do this is will make driving safer foe everybody on the road. However, the path for Ai to make difficult decisions is not a straight path. Everyday a human gets behind a wheel they have to make decision to make every car and person around them safer. Rarely humans have to make hard ethical decisions. If society reaches a level of fully autonomous vehicles, they will have to make similar decisions. A question regarding AI in cars is how it would deal with ethical decisions such as the Trolley dilemma. The trolley problem is an ethical question that asks someone would they purposely kill one person if it could mean you could save five people (Crockett, 2016).

Although AI in cars may not have to make this exact decision how will they make ethical decisions they are faced with? Most researchers refer to a study called Moral machines while trying to answer this question. Moral machines according too Harvard University presents “players with a series of accident scenarios that boil down to decisions about who is worth saving” (Harvard, 2018). During the study of moral machines, the researchers found that morality differs between the person and the region. Since morality differs between people cars should reflect that in their decisions. Practically this may look like a morality setting, this means that the passenger can select to some degree on how the car drivers. The degree to which the passenger can choose is still up for debate however I fell this is the best option that is being discussed. The adjustment of the morality can distribute the liability the passenger is willing to take. Over the next few years we will see how ethics in autonomous cars will unfold

 

 

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crockett, M. (2016, Dec). The trolley problem: would you kill one person to save many others? Retrieved from TheGuardian: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/dec/12/the-trolley-problem-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-many-others

Hao, K. (2017, October 2017). Most Americans think self-driving cars are inevitable but fewer than half would ride in one. Retrieved from Quartz: https://qz.com/1095562/most-americans-think-self-driving-cars-are-inevitable-but-fewer-than-half-would-ride-in-one/.

Harvard, U. o. (2018, October). Retrieved from http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/effort-make-moral-machines-finds-cultural-differences-human-morality/

Ritcher, F. (2018, March 20). Consumer Concerns About Self-Driving Cars. Retrieved from Statista: https://www.statista.com/chart/5950/concerns-about-self-driving-cars/

Rouse, M. (2019, October). self-driving car (autonomous car or driverless car). Retrieved from TechTarget: https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/definition/driverless-car?_ga=2.125401486.549988765.1606351003-15167974.1606351003

Stewart, J. (2018, March 30). Tesla’s Autopilot Was Involved in Another Deadly Car Crash. Retrieved from Wired: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-autopilot-self-driving-crash-california/

Team, F. (n.d.). Artificial Intelligence Reshaping the Automotive Industry. Retrieved from Future Bridge: https://www.futurebridge.com/industry/perspectives-mobility/artificial-intelligence-reshaping-the-automotive-industry/#:~:text=In%20the%20next%208%E2%80%9310,key%20aspects%20to%20look%20at.