AI and the Future of Autonomous Vehicles: What Could Happen & Who Could See it First

Originally published by Marshall Kirkpatrick at www.getlittlebird.com as part of a 30 day series on the intersection of AI and a wide variety of other exponential technologies, as explored by cross-over influencers and experts.

“Computers can do a lot, but they can’t do things as complicated as driving a car!” People used to say that. Now we know navigation and safety are largely challenges of data processing at scale and in real time. Computers are getting pretty good at that.

Thanks to internet scale access to data, processing power, and connectivity, artificial intelligence is finally starting to bloom in specific industries. Autonomous vehicles are going to be one of the most striking places we see that in everyday life. Just this week, Ford announced it will be mass producing fully autonomous vehicles in just 5 years. Uber said it will start offering rides in self-driving cars in Pittsburg this month!

What happens when vehicles and AI grow together over the next 5 to 10 years? What are some possible future scenarios?

We can identify some of those now, but perhaps even more valuable is identifying some people who are likely sources or early discoverers of future knowledge about possible futures. Who’s paying the most attention to this intersection of autonomous vehicles and AI?

We used Little Bird’s influencer discovery and research technology to find out, (as you can use it to find key people in any industry). In today’s edition of our 30 Days of AI series, we’ll share a few great people to watch — and a few great big potential scenarios for the future. In this series, we’re asking for your feedback and we’re encouraging you to read the whole series, to watch expert opinion about how artificial intelligence (AI, machine learning, computer vision, data science, etc.) could impact a wide range of human experiences over the next 5 to 10 years.

Possible Future Scenarios

When it comes to vehicles and AI, the primary intersection is just that AI is making autonomous vehicles possible. How ready is society? I highly recommend the Scout.ai dispatch titled “Cities Like Seattle Are Recklessly Unprepared For Self-Driving Cars” for an in-depth, writerly exploration of this question.

Here are some other scenarios identified by subject matter experts in the intersection of these two fields that could unfold over the next 5 to 10 years of autonomous vehicles + AI.

Untitled from CityLab on Vimeo.

• Goodbye traffic lights: Traffic could be algorithmically optimized, with smart contracts at intersections negotiating for right-away like real-time ad exchanges bid for ad inventory on websites depending on the visitor. Priority at intersections may be given to people with urgent medical conditions — or people willing to make larger micro-payments. And millions of lives will be saved.
• Autonomy at war: Autonomous vehicles could travel to a target, make a decision to use lethal force, and do so autonomously. Human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch are adamantly opposed, cynical veterans sometimes say they’d trust machines more than some of the people the military puts in charge.
• Your autonomous vehicle’s so cheap, it probably has to… The rich could have their own private autonomous vehicles, which they control independently. The middle class may borrow vehicles for their personal transportation on demand. The poor may ride ad-sponsored autonomous vehicles in bulk, their destinations chosen for them.

What do you think? Do those sound like they’d be high-impact scenarios if they came true? And do you think they are likely to come true? Let us know in comments, or on your favorite social network.

Personally, on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of impact times likelihood, I’d score goodbye traffic lights a 7*9 (63), clean killing a 3*4 (12), and class inequality a 5*9 (45). I think safety is going to be great, and the other adverse parts of society (war, inequality) will look similar to the way they do now. Do you see it differently? Let us know.

Who to Watch

Jack Clark

Jack Clark is an AI guy who’s also influential in the autonomous vehicles community. A trailblazing reporter covering AI at Bloomberg until last week, Clark now works for the Elon Musk and Valley-stars funded OpenAI. OpenAI is hiring up all the top notch AI developers it can get its hands on and is dedicated to making sure AI developers in our common human interest, instead of just the interests of a few big tech companies. Clark was hired to help build community and tell the AI story.

Martin Ford

Another cross-over influencer best known in AI and robotics, Martin Ford is a futurist who’s influential in AVs and deeply interested in AI. He’s particularly interested in the economics of robotics and is closely watched by the Basic Income community.

Lex Fridman

MIT researcher Lex Fridman is working on semi-autonomous vehicles. What does that mean? Here’s a video of something he’s working on.

Duflos Bertrand

Paris-based Duflos Bertrand is a patent attorney in the autonomous vehicles space and he’s very good at Twitter. We identified him as one of the 5 most influential people online to watch in the autonomous vehicles market this May. Bertrand is also interested in smart cities and sustainability.

These are four people we recommend watching — and three scenarios that current research suggests could take shape over the next 5 to 10 years. What do you think?