Robot Race Car Drivers – Yes It’s Coming

About five years ago, I wrote a very interesting article suggesting that Google’s autonomous car would eventually compete in NASCAR against human drivers. I laughed sometime later, when on April 1, Google posted a joke video on YouTube that said they were going to get into NASCAR and that they had sponsorship for their autonomous vehicle. I’m glad you liked my joke, and I’m sure everyone thought it was funny, since it was April Fool’s Day, even if a large number of people probably found out about it. Okay, let’s talk, shall we?

You see, there was a very interesting article in the October 2013 issue of Popular Science. The article was titled “Traffic Patterns: Robots Can Now Outpace Humans; Now Everyone Must Get Out of Their Way” by Adam Fisher. In the article they took us to this probable future. You may have seen Google’s car driving through a parking structure in Silicon Valley dodging concrete barriers, driving 35 miles per hour, the video I saw had a person in the correct seat for the trip who was scared. not knowing if the car could negotiate at that speed. The car drove faster than a human could probably maneuver, and it did it all with sensors and high-speed processing.

It makes sense for a car to be capable of doing this, because the United States Navy has Jets that take off from an aircraft carrier and readjust the pitch of the elevator 15 times per second, faster than any human pilot could do it and that avoids the hits. take off. The United States Navy now has UAV drones that can land on the ship fully autonomously, as well as perform aerial refueling. What I am saying is that we have the technology to build race cars that do not make mistakes, detect the other cars around them, can prevent crashes and make the best decisions based on an artificially intelligent decision matrix program with all kinds of parameters. .

Can a human being drive precisely that during a 500 lap race? Probably not. Also, if these computer systems can outperform race car drivers, they can surely outperform a mother with three kids in the car distracting her all the way to the grocery store, or an elderly man driving home from the doctor, or someone who has had too much to do. drink from a local watering hole, or eventually a taxi driver, limo driver, bus driver, and well, you’re starting to get the point.

I hope you enjoy driving your car now, because they may not allow it in the future. Also, once our cars start to fly, like in personal flying craft, I’m pretty sure the authorities won’t want you to crash into anyone else while you’re flying around. The robots will be in the driver’s seat, and you will accompany you during the trip. Consider all of this and think about it.

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