AI Secrets is your new weekly update on how AI is changing our everyday lives. Our experts will keep it clear and simple, so you can stay ahead of the game. This week we are focussing on driverless vehicles.Share this with anyone you want to keep up to date.
Upticks of Chaos on the Streets of SF 🚦😵
The freewheeling city of San Francisco has undergone many revolutions since the heady days of the 1960s, but the latest trend to hit the streets of the Bay Area does not fit the region’s carefree image. Silicon Valley’s proximity means San Francisco has become the testbed for the autonomous vehicle industry, and it’s fair to say that the teething stages have not gone smoothly, and seem to be getting worse.
It’s been a particularly rough week for the city’s robotaxis. GM’s Cruise service made headlines when one of their driverless vehicles rear-ended an articulated bus, which bamboozled the AI by being bendier than expected. If this seems like an oversight on behalf of the developers, spare a thought for rival service Waymo; a posse of five driverless Waymo taxis stopped dead in the middle of the street after encountering the surprising and unpredictable phenomenon of fog in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Wired published dashcam footage of numerous near-misses involving the city’s public transportation networks, where the skill of human drivers was the only factor preventing a serious accident. The city’s Director of Transportation, Jeffrey Tumlin, described the situation as “a significant uptick… of chaos on our streets.”
Bad driving is nothing new, but these new forms of unpredictable behavior pose an unfamiliar challenge to drivers. As firms like Cruise and Waymo seek to expand their fleets, humans can expect to see more erratic AI behaviors on the streets, but it may be some time before they become familiar. A fascinating neurological study was published this week examining how human brains react to robotic opponents in table tennis; it found that the parieto-occipital cortex - the area of the brain that handles spatial awareness - is “relaxed” when facing a human opponent’s familiar motions, but becomes “desynchronized” when trying to read an inscrutable robot, leading to greatly increased brain activity. In the uncanny Silicon Valley, drivers are learning to cope with similar challenges to their instincts, but at much higher stakes.
Longstanding concerns over driver (and pedestrian) safety in the Bay Area may seem overshadowed by recent debates about regulation within the AI industry. However, incidents like these serve as a microcosm, highlighting not only the broader issues but also the immediate physical dangers posed by autonomous vehicles. To learn more about the wider debate on AI regulation, don't miss our explainer on the pros and cons of pausing AI development!
Special Limited Edition!
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