If autonomous vehicles ever dominate our roads and highways, here's one example why folks shouldn't rush the transition. A YouTube video from October shows a prime example of fears over such vehicles at the world's first autonomous motorsports circuit, otherwise dubbed Roborace. The clip shows one driverless candidate, a car called DevBot 2.0, hit the wall for no visible reason.
Are Autonomous Cars The Future Of Auto Racing?
The race, listed as Event 1.1 , took place on a circuit track near Thruxton, England, and was broadcast live on Twitch. Roborace proponents have declared this to be a series showcasing the future of auto racing. And adding to the lack of organic content, it stood to reason that driverless cars make a lot of sense since COVID-19 has wiped out any chance of human spectators showing up.
That said, the car could have used a bit of human ingenuity. One wonders what kind of data was fed into the memory for the A.I. of DevBot 2.0 to take a corner that widely, especially with no other traffic in the area. Even casual racing fans would know that a car should brake tightly into a corner then accelerate like crazy coming out of it.
Issues During Initialization Lap
There didn't seem to very much visible damage to the car other than the front end, which for its makers is good news since these prototypes are worth nearly $1.1 million. But there were probably a few bruised egos from the engineers programming this automated beast.
One engineer claimed that the problem started around the initialization lap when the vehicle was unable to recognize the data and caused the steering control elements to default to code that wasn't a number. The car's A.I. then transformed that code into a very high number, causing the vehicle to sharply turn right and slam into the concrete barrier.
Concerns About Autonomous Vehicles
The incident lends credence to why most Americans have concerns about autonomous vehicles, even though the likes of Ford and Tesla are ramping up their autopilot technology. Fortunately, most motorists aren't likely to be going driverless onto a racetrack anytime soon. In the meantime, it might be an opportunity for the geniuses behind DevBot 2.0 to go back to the drawing board.
Source: Car Throttle, YouTube