WHAT'S HOLDING BACK SELF-DRIVING CARS? HUMAN DRIVERS
WHAT'S HOLDING BACK SELF-DRIVING CARS? HUMAN DRIVERS
BY TOM KRISHER May 11, 6:36 AM EDT
DETROIT (AP) -- In just a few years, well-mannered
self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human
drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the
robotaxis.
A self-driving car would be programmed to drive at the
speed limit. Humans routinely exceed it by 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph) - just
try entering the New Jersey Turnpike at normal speed. Self-driving cars
wouldn't dare cross a double yellow line; humans do it all the time. And then
there are those odd local traffic customs to which humans quickly adapt.
In Los Angeles and other places, for instance, there's
the "California Stop," where drivers roll through stop signs if no
traffic is crossing. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, courteous drivers practice
the "Pittsburgh Left," where it's customary to let one oncoming car
turn left in front of them when a traffic light turns green. The same thing
happens in Boston. During rush hours near Ann Arbor, Michigan, drivers
regularly cross a double-yellow line to queue up for a left-turn onto a
freeway.
"There's an endless list of these cases where we as
humans know the context, we know when to bend the rules and when to break the
rules," said Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie
Mellon University who leads the school's autonomous car research.
Although autonomous cars are likely to carry passengers
or cargo in limited areas during the next three to five years, experts say it
will take many years before robotaxis can coexist with human-piloted vehicles
on most side streets, boulevards and freeways. That's because programmers have
to figure out human behavior and local traffic idiosyncrasies. And teaching a
car to use that knowledge will require massive amounts of data and big
computing power that is prohibitively expensive at the moment.
"Driverless cars are very rule-based, and they don't
understand social graces," said Missy Cummings, director of Duke
University's Humans and Autonomy Lab.
Driving customs and road conditions are dramatically
different across the globe, with narrow, congested lanes in European cities,
and anarchy in Beijing's giant traffic jams. In India's capital, New Delhi,
luxury cars share poorly marked and congested lanes with bicycles, scooters,
trucks, and even an occasional cow or elephant.
Then there is the problem of aggressive humans who make
dangerous moves such as cutting cars off on freeways or turning left in front
of oncoming traffic. In India, for example, even when lanes are marked, drivers
swing from lane to lane without hesitation.
Already there have been isolated cases of human drivers
pulling into the path of cars such as Teslas, knowing they will stop because
they're equipped with automatic emergency braking.
"It's hard to program in human stupidity or someone
who really tries to game the technology," says John Hanson, spokesman for
Toyota's autonomous car unit.
Kathy Winter, vice president of automated driving
solutions for Intel, is optimistic that the cars will be able to see and think
like humans before 2030.
Cars with sensors for driver-assist systems already are
gathering data about road signs, lane lines and human driver behavior. Winter
hopes auto and tech companies developing autonomous systems and cars will
contribute this information to a giant database.
Artificial intelligence developed by Intel and other
companies eventually could access the data and make quick decisions similar to
humans, Winter says.
Programmers are optimistic that someday the cars will be
able to handle even Beijing's traffic. But the cost could be high, and it might
be a decade or more before Chinese regulators deem self-driving cars reliable
enough for widespread public use, said John Zeng of LMC Automotive Consulting.
Intel's Winter expects fully autonomous cars to collect,
process and analyze four terabytes of data in 1 ½ hours of driving, which is
the average amount a person spends in a car each day. That's equal to storing
over 1.2 million photos or 2,000 hours of movies. Such computing power now
costs over $100,000 per vehicle, Zeng said. But that cost could fall as more
cars are built.
Someday autonomous cars will have common sense programmed
in so they will cross a double-yellow line when warranted or to speed up and find
a gap to enter a freeway. Carnegie Mellon has taught its cars to handle the
"Pittsburgh Left" by waiting a full second or longer for an
intersection to clear before proceeding at a green light. Sensors also track
crossing traffic and can figure out if a driver is going to stop for a sign or
red light. Eventually there will be vehicle-to-vehicle communication to avoid
crashes.
Still, some skeptics say computerized cars will never be
able to think exactly like humans.
"You'll never be able to make up a person's ability
to perceive what's the right move at the time, I don't think," said New
Jersey State Police Sgt. Ed Long, who works in the traffic and public safety
office.
Allen G. Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina; Joe McDonald
in Beijing; Nirmala George in New Delhi; and Michael Liedtke in San Francisco
contributed to this report.
© 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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