You're not living in this world if you did not hear about AI nowadays.
It is also fair to say that you might also come from another planet if you have not yet heard about Generative AI, and the ChatGPT noise.
As we think about AI, we also commonly think about a key word which is responsibility.
There is a consensus on the fact that for many operations and tasks, AI should not take over the responsibility that relies on humans and need to keep humans in the loop for critical decisions. However, there is a paradox, when it comes to autonomous vehicles. We know that vehicles, such as cars, even though they are one of the greatest innovations of our century that have revolutionized human mobility, are also a cause of death for many. Can AI make the right decisions on the road, in an autonomous way, therefore without having human judgement in the loop?
On the other hand, according to the World Health Organization, every year the lives of approximately 1.3 million people are cut short as a result of a road traffic crash. In fact, road injuries are one of the top 10 causes of death in the world. In addition, between 20 and 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability as a result of their injury. We have somehow integrated this situation as a sort of normality, which it is not. The autonomous car will change the world because it should lead us into safer mobility, and this is definitely something that will be for the benefit of society. To your point, what are the steps, from the ones that may be close to us, to the ones that are a bit more distant, to achieve this?
Every commercial airplane carries a “black box” that preserves a second-by-second history of everything that happens in the aircraft’s systems as well as of the pilots’ actions, and those records have been priceless in figuring out the causes of crashes. When it comes to autonomous cars and we can extend this to any robots, would a black box technology be a guarantee of safety and especially explainability, and how could this approach be an opportunity, not only to understand events proactively, but also to reinvent the process of technical control?
Self-directing autonomous systems go well beyond cars, trucks, and robot welders on factory floors. We are living more and more older, and the way we will organise society for this is one of the key stakes moving forward. As the developments of self-directing autonomous systems evolve, opportunities of reinventing nursing homes using some sort of “care-bots” to deliver meals, monitor patients, and even provide companionship will be made possible. While exploring the necessary capabilities for safe autonomous cars to become a reality in our society, what is from your view, the other grand challenges, these technologies would help humanity to tackle?