11 Big Autonomous Vehicle & AI Stories — #NewsBonanza
Following up on EV battery and EV charging #NewsBonanza posts, here’s one on 11 autonomous vehicle & AI stories from the past couple of months that we thought should be covered but we never got to for individual stories. Enjoy.
1. Google wants to make “good” AI, and it wants your help doing so. “Google is taking both its immense tech capabilities and social responsibility role very seriously. Namely, it has pledged to provide tangible support to organizations wanting to help address societal challenges using artificial intelligence through its just announced ‘AI Impact Challenge’. Whether an idea needs coaching, grant funding from a pool of $25 million available, or credit and consulting from cloud services, Google will be there to help.”
2. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is putting $2 billion into an effort to provide artificial intelligence with common sense, via a program called Machine Common Sense (MCS). “The program aims to enable computers to communicate naturally, behave reasonably in new situations, and learn from new experiences.”
3. Smart Columbus & DriveOhio launched a self-driving shuttle service on December 10th. Smart Circuit, as it’s called, uses vehicles from May Mobility and covers a 1.5-mile loop around the Scioto Mile during the hours 6:00–22:00. There are 4 stops and departures are every 10 minutes. While the shuttle is autonomous (and free), there is a backup driver onboard for now.
4. Lyft bought AR company Blue Vision Labs. “Blue Vision Labs will be the first Lyft office in London, and will become part of Lyft’s Level 5 division to build technology for Lyft’s self-driving efforts.”
5. Bosch & Daimler aim to make San José, California, the test locale of an on-demand, autonomous, ride-hailing service. “Using automated Mercedes-Benz S-Class vehicles, Bosch and Daimler propose to offer the service to a selected user community in the San Carlos/Stevens Creek corridor between downtown and west San José.
“The on-demand ride-hailing service app operated by Daimler Mobility Services will demonstrate how mobility services such as car sharing (car2go), ride-hailing (mytaxi), and multi-modal platforms (moovel) can be intelligently connected. The test operation will provide information about how highly and fully automated vehicles can be integrated into a multi-modal transportation network. The intent is to provide a seamless digital experience, in which a selected user community will have the opportunity to hail a self-driving car, monitored by a safety driver, from a designated pick-up location and drive automatically to their destination.”
6. Emily Hamilton of Market Urbanism proposes three policies that are critical to make self-driving cars actually work for cities — help cities rather than hurt them. Click the link to read the ideas.
7. Brett Winton of Ark Invest noted on Twitter how rapidly the computing performance needed for autonomous driving has improved. To be honest, the tweet (below) would have flown over my head if I saw it without context, but someone on the Tesla Motors Club forum made the point clear via his/her forum post headline: “The plummeting cost of deep learning silicon.”