Artificial Intelligence and Driverless Cars

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the technology of the future. Although still in its infancy stages, AI is currently being used, tested and researched for a number of industries, including the automotive niche.

AI will transform the industry, but it’s still unclear how it’ll actually happen or when, given some people aren’t exactly comfortable with driverless cars taking over our roads. Yet all the biggest auto makers are currently researching how to incorporate AI into their driving system, as they race to be the first to unveil such technology in a car.

In the United States

To make sure everyone is following certain rules, the Self-Drive Act in the United States was passed, establishing certain deadlines for how AI and new autonomous driving will enter our streets. The Act allows 100,000 autonomous vehicles to start testing on the roads by 2021. That’s actually not too far away and automakers are being rivaled by tech firms trying to do the same thing, pushing the two to come together to partner with each other to get the job done right.

Autonomous driving today

Currently, there are a few self-driving systems being tested and they’re based on a wide range of things like cameras, complex algorithms and sensors to create this sort of personal digital world for the vehicle to help it self-drive on the roads while still be cautious about other cars and the environment around them. Since there are so many different variables while out driving, these programs have to be on top of their game, programmed with limitless things it can encounter while driving.

Source: Phys.org

Technologies to come

Tech giant Apple currently trying to build their own autonomous vehicle, which Chief Executive Tim Cook describing their efforts as “the mother of all” AI challenges. This is the result of very large amounts of computing data that needs to be harvested from a car’s sensors and then given the correct procedure program to keep up with ever-changing road conditions and situations.

Source: Digital Trends

And Ford is currently investing a lot of time, resources and money in their own Argo AI technology, putting $1 billion in the startup to develop AI software for their own models. There’s also Drive.ai, which is a Silicon Valley start-up that was founded in 2015 by a few co-workers from Stanford University’s AI lab. Their goal is to build “the brain of the self-driving car.”

So as we continue to advance more and more into the future, AI self-driving cars are inevitable and something we will see in our lifetimes!