Why does the world need electric autonomous cars?

We are on the cusp of exciting developments in the automotive industry like the widescale industrial production of electric autonomous vehicles. Led by Tesla, it seems the world’s car manufacturers are slowly beginning to realise that cars will no longer be powered by fossil fuels and instead will be powered by batteries as this is the only environmentally sustainable future for humanity. Tesla has made electric cars cool by designing them properly and making them perform at the level of the most exciting petrol cars and in some cases exceeding the levels of performance achievable in petrol super-cars.

At first, I was confused by the proponents of electric vehicles because, particularly in Australia, the majority of electrical power comes from coal meaning that electric cars are in fact coal powered cars. However, on closer analysis, it is still the case that electric cars powered by a coal-fired grid emit lower emissions than a fleet of petrol vehicles. This is because the scale of production of a power plant adopts economies of scale into the equation which allow less emissions per kilometre travelled. Also, as the grid is slowly transitioned to renewable energy, already having an electric car infrastructure will increase the rate of adoption of sustainable transport if there is already a critical mass of electric vehicles on the road.

In fact, there are already a number of electric vehicles on sale today like the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi iMiev and Telsa Model S but their range and cost is presently too high to promote widespread adoption. Fortunately, Tesla is about to release the Model 3 which will bring an electric autonomous vehicle to an affordable level for the masses. It seems many other manufacturers are racing to bring similar products to market for fear of being left behind by Tesla.

The other major technological development in the motor industry at the moment is the development of autonomous vehicles. Apart from the safety benefits, autonomous vehicles have the potential radically change the transport game. Autonomous vehicles could, when partnered with rideshare services like uber, provide very cheap fares because of the lack of a driver. This will progressively reduce the need for private car ownership and because the vehicles on the road will be used much more efficiently than they are currently, congestion and the associated pollution will be reduced. Also, autonomous vehicles have shown in testing that statistically speaking they are already much safer drivers than human beings.

About the Author:

David Coleman
Technology Enthusiast

Artificial Intelligence Entering the Real World

Its 2017 and we are now counting down the time until 2020 by when people were supposed to have anti-gravity boots and be driving flying cars according to some science fiction writers from the past. Technology has been progressing at an astounding rate and virtually no one would have predicted the widespread adoption of technologies in the last 10 years like smart-phones, uber, the pervasiveness of social media and the seeming encroachment of technology into every aspect of our daily lives.

These days, I have a google home assistant that is with me in the morning as soon as I wakeup with reminders of the days activity and puts me to sleep at night with relaxing music from Pandora. At the end of my bed is a Playstation 4 which keeps me entertained for hours on end and if I do decide to leave my bedroom, I can simply call an uber to take me anywhere I want to go or even book a flight using my smartphone which spends every waking hour with me.

Despite all this advancement it seems that there is a technology which is on the cusp of breaking out into an unknown, exciting and perhaps terrifying world of artificial intelligence. Until now, the applicability of computer ‘intelligence’ has been limited to a clunky aid to the thought processes of human beings. However, processing power is now distributed widely enough that the algorithms required to produce a level of artificial intelligence which rivals the capabilities of human beings can be quite easily run on a smart phone or tablet. Everyday devices are now capable of running complex voice recognition software, computer vision programs, natural language processing algorithms, highly sophisticated search algorithms and these algorithms are being given access to an exploding array of data based on everything from our location to our milkshake preferences.

So where is all this going?

Elon Musk and Bill Gates amongst others have expressed concerns about the rise of artificial intelligence, particularly its weaponisation. If a super intelligent computer is within the control of a small group of humans and is purposed as a weapon the consequences would be dire for the rest of humanity. A superintelligent computer could be more damaging than nuclear weapons in the wrong hands. We have nuclear non-proliferation treaties but no one has seriously proposed artificial intelligence limitation treaties.

Having said that, superintelligence has the potential to deliver solutions to problems which have plagued humanity for centuries. It could perform medical research developing treatments which would otherwise take decades of research to discover. It could discover innovative solutions to social problems like crime, war and poverty by predicting the likely eventuation of these problems before they occur. Predicting natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis may extend the warning time for such events to days or even weeks because a superintelligent computer would be capable of modelling these events more effectively than is possible with present technology.

Like all technology, it seems that it is a double-edged sword. In the hands of a benevolent actor, it is a positive benefit to society. In the hands of criminals, it can create havoc and destruction. It seems that in the case of artificial intelligence, it will be the same but the stakes will be much higher because of the enormous potential for both harm and good that this technilogy possesses.