WEBVTT - Are self-driving cars a good idea? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:09.000 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:17.800 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.079 Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.560 I am an editor and how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.079 Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.479 I'm driving in my car. I turn on the radio. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.239 You want to keep going. I kind of expected you. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:37.520 I could pull you a little closer, but I'm sure 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:39.680 you would say no. I'm going to say no, believe me. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.760 That's going to lead into our discussion. But before we 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:48.159 get into that, we've got a little, um well, Facebook feedback. 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:52.280 Chris just gets so tickled that I do that now. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.480 And plus yea, the shouting because because people tell me 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:01.040 they missed the old listener male intro. You guys are 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:05.080 that listener mail was yeah, a little. The listener mail 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.120 people are masochists. I mean I'm not. I enjoyed doing 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.360 it too. And anyway, let's get to the actual feedback, 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:15.640 shall we. Phil left this Facebook feedback, not that Phil, 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.000 He says, Hey, guys, since fallout, New Vegas is coming 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.960 out this Tuesday. You should probably do a podcast in 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:24.360 the whole series, you know you want to, Uh, we'll 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.760 fill you're you're right. I mean I love Fallout. I 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.320 love Fallout three in particular. That's really where I started playing. 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.039 The series was followed three when it came out for 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.360 the Xbox three sixty. But we usually focus on games 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.479 that have an even longer history than Fallout does, or 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:41.880 is something that's complete, or there's been a lot of 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.560 controversy around it, particularly when you think the game's never 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.880 gonna come out. But that's not the case. We Fallout 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:53.240 New Vegas, and since we don't cover new games, we 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:56.720 don't cover news as it were. Uh, we're just gonna 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.800 have to leave it to the fact that the games 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.480 are pretty cool. Also, if you want to annoy Veronica Belmont, 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.840 you can ask her why she didn't voice the character 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.080 of Veronica and instead it was Felicia Day because she 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.919 loves that. Don't tell her I said it. Tell her 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.760 that Josh and Chuck of stuff. You shouldn't have said it. Um. Yeah, 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:18.600 that that's that's funny because we get a lot of 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.480 questions now that you mentioned it. Um, now that we 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:24.040 don't get so many questions about how to tech people's 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.120 computer problems, which is good because it's kind of difficult 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.640 to do that in our In our roles, we we 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.079 do get a lot of questions about what product is 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.639 better than another product, or which computer to choose or 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.040 stuff like that, and it's difficult for us because we 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.000 don't do reviews at how stuff works dot com. The 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:42.720 site doesn't really do review um, you know, entries or 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.000 anything like that. Occasionally we'll talk about something on the blogs, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.800 but not in not really as a product review, and 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:49.760 it's sort of difficult for us to tell you, you you know, 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.280 which model of headphone to buy or which video game 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.200 is worth your money. Yeah, I mean, of course we 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:00.079 we talked to other journalists and can point you in 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.320 a ton of different directions as far as quality resource 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.079 resources on that. And unfortunately, in this particular case, I've 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:07.880 never played any of the Fallout series, although I was 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:10.080 aware of it from the very from the very beginning. 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:11.440 It was one of those games that I always meant 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.480 to get to and then never did. It's it's definitely 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.520 an interesting series and I am eager to play Fallout 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:21.960 New Vegas. Actually, my wife last night offered to drive 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:24.200 over and pick up a copy for me. But I 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.440 had just purchased three new games, and I was like, 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.519 I can't justify spending that much on yet another new 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.240 game after I just bought three something. Maybe we can 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:34.800 mention it later. You can tell us what you think 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:36.960 when you get around to it. Sure, Yeah, that'll be 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.320 sometime in There are a lot of titles right now. 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.520 So let's go on to the actual topic of the 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:48.240 day and the today. We're going to talk about autonomous vehicles, 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:53.000 self driving cars, right, and UM, I have a I 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.480 have a little statistic to throw out before we really 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:01.040 dive into this. So according to the Texas Transport Station Institute, 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:08.440 which does these big annual studies on traffic and and uh, 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:12.200 commute times that kind of stuff across the United States. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.400 Of course they're big different Texas. Yeah, yeah, don't mess 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.240 with them, but they do state by state. They don't 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:23.520 they don't constran just Texas. Uh. They calculated using new calculations. Actually, 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.800 they just came out with a new way of calculating, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:28.760 a new method, a new method, right, a new algorithm 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.640 relate to to calculate averages that they think will be 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.919 more accurate than previous ones. Um. But they said that 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.599 the average annual delay in hours due to traffic in 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:42.200 two thousand seven, which is the latest that they had 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:47.920 data available, was around twenty nine hours per year. That's 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:51.600 the average. The worst city in the United States. Can 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.839 you guess do we live in it? No? Where we 0:04:54.880 --> 0:05:00.440 live in the third worst DC, DC second worst is 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.640 worse than Atlanta and d C l A. I love 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.159 l A. Los Angeles. You top out the nation was 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:12.400 sixty nine point five hours of delay each year due 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:17.760 to traffic. So yeah, almost three full days lost every 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:23.640 year sitting in the car due to traffic. Wow. So uh. 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.400 There are ways that we could address these traffic problems. 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:31.839 The traditional ways you build more roads, which unfortunately turns 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.360 out doesn't really help so much. Just means you get 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:37.320 more people on the road. That's funny because I thought 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:41.919 where we were going we don't need roads. Nice. But 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.800 another method is to try and take the human element 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:49.240 out of the equation. Yeah, you know what, it's it's funny. Um. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.919 Long before we came to work for Discovery Communications, UM, 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.239 I fell in love with a series of articles written 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.520 by Hannah Holmes on Discovery dot com, which, according to 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:01.800 my iPad, they still exist, they're still up there. She 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.840 did a series called The Skinny On and Uh, one 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:08.440 of my favorites was traffic jam ghosts. You know those 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.919 times when you're you're backed up in traffic on the 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.480 expressway or you know, even on a regular street, and 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:17.400 you know it's just it's just bad everything. All the 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:19.760 lanes are backed up and you're inching along and then 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:24.160 suddenly there's nothing there and everybody's driving like normal. Well, 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:27.479 as it turns out, that is due to human error. 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.720 Like one, there was something there at some point, but 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.520 because people are not all moving at the same rate 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.720 of speed, um, it takes a while for that that 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:42.520 glut to dissipate again. Yeah, there's a that's that's a 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.359 very good point because we're not only we're humans. We 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:47.880 all have our own reactions in our own way of 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:51.960 dealing with things, and uh, and so something tiny can 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.440 develop into a huge traffic jam. Let's say that. Let's 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:00.000 say that the traffic is heavy but moving right. Uh, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.839 And you think, well, as long as the road has 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:05.400 the capacity to hold the number of cars that are 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.440 on it, traffic should keep moving. There's no reason why 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.480 traffic should stop. Until you think, all right, well, someone 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:16.440 taps on their brakes. Now the person behind that car 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.680 will react in one of various ways, not they just 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.000 tap on their brakes. If everyone just tapped on their brakes, 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.360 then you would have a slight slowing, but everything would 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.400 keep moving. But some people will hit their brakes harder, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:29.960 or they will move into another lane, which will then 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:33.280 cause someone else behind them to react. And this is 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:35.320 a domino effect, and it will keep going back and 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.520 it will cause traffic jams and congestion. Uh. Now, of course, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:42.600 you can always have an event that's much more severe 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.320 than that, like a crash or uh, some debris in 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.560 the road or weather conditions or whatever, or ladders in Atlanta, 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:51.440 or ladders or you know, or zebras there was the 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.960 time the zebra got on the highway. At any rate, 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.680 those things can also clearly cause traffic. But but a 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.920 lot of it does come from just that initial human 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.760 reaction to an event that then balloons out of control. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.320 And as far as traffic is concerned, as other people 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:12.200 react to that first person's reaction, so it just it 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:16.080 becomes a chain reaction or don't react, in which case 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.760 there's another accident, which right, and and there doesn't even 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:22.760 necessarily have to be an accident at all. It could, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:25.000 like I said, just be as simple as someone tapping 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:31.760 on the brakes. So creating an automated driving vehicle in 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:34.880 a way, sounds like this could help take care of 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.640 this sort of problem because the automated driving vehicles are 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:42.200 going to react much more quickly than humans can, and 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.400 theoretically in a way that's going to be safer than 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.440 just a human like quick gut reaction. Also, they don't 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.480 get distracted by stuff like the pretty girl in the 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:58.840 car next to you, Hey, baby, how are you doing cars? 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.000 Or the or say something something on the side of 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.200 the road, or or the song that came on the 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:09.120 radio is the song that you hate the most in 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:10.920 the world or you love the most in the world, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.200 And so your attention is pulled away from the road 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.800 for just a little bit while you either you know, 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:17.920 try to punch a hole in your radio or you 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:20.880 do the chair dance, which I'm doing right now. You 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.839 can't tell, but Chris can anyway, stop it, okay. So 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.840 automated cars would not obviously would not fall victim to 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.240 these sort of problems. I mean, they wouldn't be like, hey, 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:34.960 look at the circuits on that car. Next, Hey, baby, 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:38.120 I see you like to driff. Yeah, they don't do that, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.520 um unless it's maybe Kit and he's had a little 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:46.079 too much anyway, So I don't know how I got 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:49.319 off in this goofy tangents, probably as I'm hungry. Um. So, 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:54.000 the the that would make this theoretically would make driving safer, 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.480 assuming that, of course lots of people have these cars. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.560 You take the human error element out. There are other 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.840 problems that will come into play, and we'll talk about them, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.800 but theoretically it would mean that traffic would move move 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.920 more smoothly and there'll be fewer accidents. In fact, that 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.040 was a big point that was made recently in a 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.240 discussion that we'll get to about self driving cars and 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.960 how they could in theory cut traffic fatalities in half 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.439 or more. Now, despite the fact that this has been 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.559 in the news a lot lately with a venture we 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:32.640 will discuss in a minute, this is certainly not a 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.199 new idea by any stretch of the imagination, right. Yeah. Actually, uh, 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.640 I came across a great post on Technologizer by Harry McCracken, 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.640 who kind of did a walk down memory lane with 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:50.520 various stories about predictions for self driving automobiles, the first 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:57.040 of which dated from nineteen thirty three in Popular Science, sorry, 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:00.640 popular mechanics. Mechanics. Yeah, a lot of the uh. He 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.760 listed several of them. Um. It seems like they were 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.720 either in Popular Science or popular mechanics. But the first 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:11.760 was Popular Mechanics. Um. And basically it seemed kind of 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:16.960 far fetched, at least based on the the UH section. Yeah, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:18.840 I mean they were. They were looking at the fact 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.720 that you had garage door openers. He's like, well, I mean, 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:23.240 if you can automate that, we can get the car 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.280 to back out of the driveway itself and turn itself 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.400 on actually would go the other way. Well, yeah, turns 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.520 off on them back out. No, it depends what all right, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:34.320 I mean, if you were for we're backing itself out, yes, 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:36.000 but I mean you could also there are other things 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:37.560 you could have. Yes, you could have some sort of 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.520 automated sliding platform, yeah, or something like that. So I mean, yeah, 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:44.040 that it doesn't seem that far fetched, but yeah, it 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:48.360 probably was a little for the time, especially you know, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.400 based on the technology they had available to them. And 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:56.000 then the fifties rolled around and everybody got into that future. Yeah, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.960 that the same same sort of futuristic optimism them that 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:05.120 gave us disney Lands tomorrow Land. That's funny you should 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:06.719 mention that you had a feeling I was going to 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:10.520 mention this. Didn't you know this was I just randomly 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.720 decided to say that, right, This is perfectly honest. I 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.600 did not know you were going to mention Disneyland. The 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:18.400 the long very long term listeners will remember that I 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.400 brought up a specific episode of the Disneyland TV show 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.839 from Oddly that's the same year that some of these 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.240 other articles from Popular Mechanics, Popular Science came out, uh 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.800 with the Magic Highway USA, right right, right, I remember 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:37.360 you showed you showed me that clip. Yeah, yeah, And 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.680 they had they had all kinds of stuff. Electric eyes 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:41.559 would be embedded in the road so they would light 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.960 up at night and you could drive on them. And 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.160 they'll have automatic signs that will tell you know where 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.560 to go because it knows where you're going. So say 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:52.319 you're going to uh Lake Tahoe, it will say, oh, 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.240 well you want to turn right seventeen miles up ahead, 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.400 and things like that. They had all sorts of far 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:59.840 fetched stuff like it could tell you what the traffic 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.000 is in your car, so you know where there's a 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:04.200 traffic jam up ahead, and your rear view mirror will 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.080 be replaced by a camera. Oh wait, there's last two. Actually, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.520 uh yeah, but there were there were other things like 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.560 it did get into the whole thing. While you'll insert 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.160 a punch card into your car and it will automatically 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.120 program the route for you, so you so Dad can 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:25.440 take a conference call on his video monitor in front 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.840 of him, or knocks back five or six scotches. Because 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.200 this is the late fifties, it wasn't that didn't happen 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.439 in the Disney Langue. But they also they had the 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:37.440 car that breaks up, so mom and the kids go 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.960 in one direction, that goes in the other direction. So it's, yeah, 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.920 a little individual personal transports, kind of like the Jetson's. 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:48.160 Yeah it wasn't you know that that seems even more 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:51.200 realistic than the part where you get to the side 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.200 of the building and the whole outside of the building 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:56.160 lifts you to the level you're supposed to be one 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.960 to that though, because that idea continued in a little 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.280 movie called Minority Report. But we'll get to that. So 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.440 the other the articles you you alluded to in the 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:08.640 there was one in Popular Science called the car that 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.560 drives itself, and one in Popular Mechanics called this car 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:16.360 has electric brains. So this was really the time when 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.760 engineers were kind of looking at ways to automate a 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.680 lot of the processes in a car. UM the night 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.080 one was an interesting one because that was a proposal 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.840 to embed along highways radio control boxes. Yeah, this is 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.680 the one in Popular Science. Yes, yes, so the idea 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:40.360 would be to use these radio control boxes to guide 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:45.560 cars through various highway systems. Um. The one in Popular 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.960 Mechanics looked looked at a college professor who had installed 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.200 a or was designing a car that was going to 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.880 use um acoustics and gyroscopes and other stuff like that 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:58.680 so that the car could drive itself. So these are 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.280 two very different systems. And the first one you're talking 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:04.920 about creating an infrastructure in which cars would navigate through. 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.280 The other one is looking at focusing all the technology 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.840 in the car itself. Yea, And those are two themes 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.280 that kind of carry through throughout the whole self driving 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:16.480 car concept. Yeah. I think that these, uh, these two 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:19.960 articles are actually the start of uh. There probably was 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:21.880 other stuff too. But I mean this is probably the 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:25.000 era in which people started taking the idea seriously and 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.080 started looking at realistic possibilities to make this stuff work, 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:31.840 because they are still talking about these technologies now as 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:34.520 as methods of handling this. Yeah. Yeah. There was another 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.320 Popular Science article in nineteen sixty seven called how You'll 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:43.040 Drive the Amazing herb Mobile Mobile verb Mobile, And the 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.280 idea here was that you could manually drive this vehicle 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.880 when you were, say, going on across country trip, but 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.840 then whenever you would enter an urban area that had 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.960 its own infrastructure, you would connect to that and it 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.440 would become almost like a little individual sub why car, 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:06.120 which again just like Minority Report, Herbie rides again Herbie 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:11.280 goes bananas. So the the I've said Minority Report a 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:14.080 couple of times the Minority Reports. Steven Spielberg went to 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.400 Lexus and said, we're doing this movie. It's set in Washington, 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:24.440 d C. Tell me what you envisioned cars to be like. 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.040 And although we clearly will be in the singularity by then, 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.280 and thus we will have merged with cars, they went 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.640 ahead and went with the whole non singularity version um 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.160 and and their cars were very much the way the 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.440 nineteen sixty seven article mentioned it was a maglev system 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.520 in the in the minority report that your car would 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:47.840 connect to and it would even allow you to drive 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:51.800 up buildings, so you would park your car at your Like, 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:53.960 let's say you live in a high rise apartment, you 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.560 can actually drive up the side and granted you're not 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.640 doing the driving the cars doing the driving the car 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.480 right move up the side of the building to your 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:03.840 apartment and you would just get step out of your 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:05.800 car to your apartment without having to go to an 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.639 elevator or anything like that. Literally door to door type 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:13.439 stuff makes me think of the The Great Muppet Caper, 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.040 like where are you going the Happiness Hotel? Where are you? 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.480 Where are you staying? Second floor? Oh, I'm sorry, you 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.240 can only take you was first the lobby because he 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:28.280 didn't have that technology anyway, So we could we could 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:31.440 talk about the history all day. Yeah, right, So let's 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.800 let's move on a little bit. We'll we'll head up 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.720 to recent years, Like let's go to two thousand before 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.760 we're gonna talk about DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:49.280 Now DARPA has been the genesis of many amazing technological developments, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:52.720 over the years, including a little thing you might know 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.840 called the Internet. Yes, but then they didn't really have 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.639 the d They were sort of d less. Yeah, they 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.359 were ARPA back then, but they're DARPA now. And um. 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.879 They issued a challenge back in two thousand two for 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.879 teams to create self driving cars that would be able 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.719 to go through a predetermined route, but they would not 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:17.400 get the predetermined route until the day of the competition. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.240 And uh, it was supposed to be both on road 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.639 and off road capabilities, and it was a it was 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.760 a pretty good distance too that they were supposed to go. 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.960 This was the two thousand four Grand Challenge. So in 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.639 two thousand four you had all these teams join uh 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.160 this uh, this Grand Challenge, um, and sadly none of 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:42.480 them successfully navigated the course. Well, um, that was only 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.679 the first of the Grand Challenges, though they followed it 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.040 up again in two thousand five and again and believe 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.960 in two thousand seven, Yeah, and two thou two thousand 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.080 fives was essentially a new version of the same course. 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.359 And that year was a different story. That year they 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:03.160 actually had um a couple of teams finish the one 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.280 that one was Stanford's team And in two thousand seven 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.320 and I believe six teams completed the course, Yes, six teams, 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.760 and two thousand seven was different like two thousand four 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.760 and two thousand five was again like the kind of this. Uh. 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.119 It started in um in California and ended in uh 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.360 uh where was it Nevada? I think, yeah, and then Nevada, 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:26.280 So it was it was a pretty long trip and 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:29.800 it had mostly there was a little bit of suburban 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.199 navigation they had to go through, but mostly it was 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:36.040 cross country. The two thousand seven challenge was an urban 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:39.480 challenge where the vehicles had to navigate an urban landscape 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.680 and there were there were cars already on the road 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:48.119 that were manned vehicles that had like professional stunt drivers 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:50.720 driving the cars, and they were in very well protected 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:55.240 you know, roll cage type scenario kind of vehicles that 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:59.359 would simulate traffic. So these automated self driving cars were 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.959 supposed to be a navigate through an urban setting and 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:04.919 be able to go through traffic without having any terrible 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:09.440 accidents closed course, professional driver do not attempt, right and 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.800 uh yeah. Out of the eleven teams that qualified for 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.119 the actual events, six of them did eventually finish it. 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.439 Uh not all six finished them within the time limit 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.320 that was set, but there were six teams that actually 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:26.520 managed to get through. The team that placed first that 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:29.800 year was the Tartan Racing team from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:32.879 they won two million dollars. Stanford that year came in 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.800 second place, even though technically they finished the course first, 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.320 but they they had more little strikes against them for 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.840 tiny little I think Stanford had a collision. Actually there 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.480 was one. And when I say collision, I mean, oh no, 0:20:47.520 --> 0:20:49.520 I'm sorry. It wasn't Stanford. I actually have the note here. 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:53.359 It was Cornell and m I T. They weren't disqualified. 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.919 They gently bumped sides as they both tried to share 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.520 a lane, and they that's when people went up to 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:03.320 the Cornell and in my two people and said, did 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.040 you not know that a physical object cannot exist within 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:09.639 the same space and time as a second physical object 0:21:09.920 --> 0:21:13.159 within the same dimension. I'm I'm willing to bet that 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.680 they knew that already. Well didn't he wouldn't know it 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:21.680 from that, I'm kidding. If you go to Cornell or 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:23.280 m I T. I know you're smarder than I am. 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.440 Right to me, yes, But as anyone who follows racing, nose, 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.640 trade and paints part of it. Yeah, trading paint. Yeah, wait, 0:21:30.720 --> 0:21:33.399 way to go. If you play burnout you would be 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:37.159 great at this. Um. Yeah, it was funny. I've got 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:38.960 this little let me let me read this one little 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:41.040 bit that came from the press release of the two 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.280 thousand seven Urban Challenge. After strong starts by all the finalists, 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.879 by midden morning, almost half of the field had been 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:51.000 removed from the race for a variety of reasons. Terra Max, 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:54.080 a returning crowd favorite, went a ryan a parking lot 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:57.399 and was stopped moments before entering the old Commissary building. 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.440 It was hungry, apparently, So this would be a bad 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:05.520 self driving car to be sitting in. If it if 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.000 it disregards the presence of a building, that is a failure. 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:13.400 No no, no, no please, no no no no no, yeah, 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:16.640 and uh. That kind of leads us to even more 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:21.040 recent developments. So lots of different engineers are working on 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.520 self driving cars. It's not just in the United States. 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:25.359 There are teams in Italy and Germany. In fact, I 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.200 was talking to christ before the podcast that a team 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:32.639 in Germany has created a self driving passat that is 0:22:32.680 --> 0:22:35.600 called the m I g MEG because it stands for 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.199 made in Germany. I still think it could be a 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:43.159 strike fighter. I'm just wondering why it wouldn't be a 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:49.639