The Crux of Autonomous Vehicles — Comforting or Unnerving?
In the not so distant past, an automobile was nothing but a medium to get a person from Point A to Point B. That was when they were looked at as physical objects with a primary focus on performance, fuel efficiency and overall power. While that boils down to newer technology making way for AI controlled engines and driverless environment, it’s worth mulling over things to gain a fresh perspective of the matter in hand.
Back in 1979, an American scientist of the cognitive front, Douglas Hofstadter came up with a general formula to apply and solve all tasks complex. According to the formula, no matter who you are, or what you do, it would always need a longer duration of time than one generally expects. Now, that might lack the very axiom of Newton, but it formed the base of many scientific projects back in those days. When you put that in perspective with technology ruling the roost, the formula itself stands moribund, as miracles each day are delivered way ahead of time. Take Machine Learning for instance; being applied to automobiles. It’s a bit surreal to witness self-driving cars out on the road today, thinking that the very idea that seemed all the way risible is already a part of reality delivered. By all means, personal transportation is experiencing a paradigm shift as consumers these days are bent on looking at an automobile to be a platform of choice. However, there are a few pullbacks, which may be for our good.
Waiting on innovation
When you talk about automation in cars or innovation for that matter, no discussion forms ground without the mentioning of Tesla. The company to have come up with world-changing ideas thus ending up building a car eventually that changed the very fabric of the game. But, they are software driven; these automobiles are a sucker for innovation which is hard to come by. This is precisely because, cars lack the annual refresh rate as that of smartphones and once into production, one might have to wait or at least 6–9 months to receive software updates, sometimes even a year. In other words, innovation could be biting the dust from one year to another, model to model. The primary issue with Autonomous Vehicles (AV) is coupling the lifecycle of the car based on the software itself. Although, relatively a new concept, it still lurks in improbability with slower update cycle and the fact that people don’t end up buying cars too often. Still worse, consumers don’t even bat an eyelid to realize that they are far from receiving at least one fraction of what the software is capable of delivering.
One can only wish cars adopt soon to open ecosystems. That would promote not only shorter stand-around time but also wider acceptability for an innovation brought to HMI (Human Machine Interface). Regrettably, it doesn’t work that way for automobiles and for the sake of safety, it never should. The automobile industry is regulated strictly for all sorts of security reasons as well as accessibility features which make software inclusions pass through testing and assurance before they go live.
Reimagining the future
When one tracks the progress of AV’s pitted against the innovation theory, it seems to be riding the S-curve. With the widespread adoption of software-driven vehicles, it’s only a matter of time before innovation hits the brass tracks. As of now, the automobile industry is eyeing across three definitive areas of focus namely, autonomous cars, ride-sharing and electric vehicles. As soon as the platform option for a vehicle hits the tipping point, these three completely different areas are bound to experience convergence, thus contributing to revolutionize how people choose their vehicles. As much as it sounds exciting, one can barely imagine what it is going to be in reality. It’s almost like a live music jam session. No one knows where they are headed and what might come out of it. So, everyone is trying their hands to bring in something new, to impart a different perspective to vehicles.
Nevertheless, there is no denying that a car platform will always be a closed ecosystem and the ones eager to push the envelope are relying heavily on software to introduce a new and more significant frontier. The fact that automakers aren’t conventionally software builders themselves, the trend to procure and invest in software making companies, thus laying their foot strongly in the Silicon Valley, it has become a trend catching up real fast. Take GM’s investment in Lyft. Also, the emergence of new technology for autonomous vehicles is on a spree. Besides AI and Machine learning, another rewarding technology like the Internet of Things (IoT) is already out there changing the game for determining vehicle health and public transport.
Changing Lanes
Innovations across hard and soft interactions have come a long way for vehicles in general. From physical buttons to touchscreen panels, cars have taken a giant leap ahead. While there have been relentless remarks as too much innovation undermining the intimacy level of a driver with a vehicle, it isn’t as shady as it sounds. We’ve had some frontrunners in innovation, offering a fresh lease of air for connected vehicles by employing cloud orchestration along with Intelligent Personal Digital Assistant that aims to add skills while still being focused on principal activity; Driving. That brings us to safety issues which have always been the point of discussion for connected cars. Let’s face it. No matter how small or big the distraction is, a call or a WhatsApp message, the impulse to take eyes off the road has almost become second nature. With speech recognition systems and HUD’s, it has been possible to help drivers keep their focus on the road while still being able to respond or check what’s going on in your phone — AppleCarPlay, Nuance, Google Android Auto has already shown the way.
As vehicles emerge to be more and more intuitive, one just can’t help but hope for innovation in finding newer ways to offer tangible solutions. But these are strange times we live in. Look around, and you will be amazed to see how basic architectural essence is losing its grip. Consider American cubicles for instance. Compare that with people driving their cars or spot them sitting at a local cafe glued to their phones, apparently they are all lost in their pretty bubble. The future of autonomous vehicles is undoubtedly an exciting episode considering how futurists and technologists are bringing forth the human element to seamlessly carve a driver-vehicle relationship where the car itself is no more a physical entity but an extension of the driver’s persona, his habits and expressions. As they delve deeper into weaving more of human understanding to tech, so shall we reap in the good.
