Making Robots That Drive, Rather Than Making Self-Driving Cars

Dr. Lance Eliot, AI Insider

[Ed. Note: For reader’s interested in Dr. Eliot’s ongoing business analyses about the advent of self-driving cars, see his online Forbes column: https://forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/]

There must be a better way, some lament.

It is taking too long, some say, and we need to try a different alternative.

What are those comments referring to?

They are referring to the efforts underway for the development of AI-based self-driving driverless autonomous cars.

There are currently billions upon billions of dollars being expended towards trying to design, develop, build, and field a true self-driving car.

For true self-driving cars, the AI drives the car entirely on its own without any human assistance during the driving task. These driverless cars are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered Level 2 and Level 3.

There is not as yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.

Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).

So far, thousands of automotive engineers and AI developers have been toiling away at trying to invent a true self-driving car.

Earlier claims that progress would be fast and sweet have shown to be over-hyped and unattainable.

If you consider this to be a vexing problem, and if you have a smarmy person that you know, they might ponder the matter and offer a seemingly out-of-the-box proposition.

Here’s the bold idea: Rather than trying to build a self-driving car, why not instead just make a robot that can drive?

Well, by gosh, why didn’t somebody think of that already, you might be wondering.