ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) VERSUS SELF DRIVING CARS (AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE)

picture credit: Pixabay

Artificial intelligence has come to stay and since the world is tending towards globalization in term of technology, Artificial intelligence is something we cannot do without. When people think or hear about artificial intelligence, the first picture that will pop up in their mind is a robot just like the killer robot in the I-robot movies but I hate to break it to you that that is not the artificial intelligence itself but the interface for the artificial intelligence.

But we continue, let us briefly know what is artificial intelligence and the technology behind it.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a written algorithm or programs that learn from experiences and situations just like a normal human being and therefore making the machine intelligent just like a normal human being and perform tasks that human being will do, the word “artificial intelligence” was first used in the year 1956. So when you see a robot, the robot isn’t the artificial intelligence but the algorithm that makes it works and behaves the way it is behaving.

Artificial intelligence is what is used in designing the computer chess game, if you have ever play chess with your system, you will find out it will in most times block your next best move in advance, well what it is doing is that the moment you make a move, it will predict your next best move thereby making you to make a fatal mistake by exposing your flank.

Some will say it had been programmed with the best moves but I could remember playing some myself and having to take the first move meaning the algorithm has to watch my move and produce the best move to counter my move. At best, I and the algorithm drew in the game. This is just one of the many algorithms called artificial intelligence.

But let go to the self-driving cars and their technology

SELF DRIVING CARS (AUTONOMOUS CARS) AND THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND IT
Self-driving cars also known as autonomous cars are that can take control of the cars and drive just as a normal human would. Which means you can just get into the car and tell it, if it is a voice command or type in your destination and it will get you there while you are probably have a good sleep.

This can be very possible ( why am using this language is that most of the self-driving cars are still undergoing safety test and are not yet fully incorporated into our daily lives). Autonomous cars are either convectional car or electric cars( either plug in hybrid or hydrogen cars), but most of the self-driving cars will in the future tends toward electric since most component used in self-driving cars are also electrical in nature.

So what the technology behind self-driving cars

Self-driving cars make use of:

GPS
I know we all have use GPS at one time or the other to get directions to where we are going from where we are presently, the function in self-driving cars are the same.

LiDAR

This is the acronym of light detection and ranging sensor. What this do is to continuously fire laser light in all direction around the car. Once the fired laser hit any obstacle they are reflected back to the car and are picked up by the sensors which calculate their distance from the car using this simple equation: V = 2x/t

Where your x is the distance of the car to the obstacle and V is the velocity of the laser light fired and your t is the time interval between firing the laser light and bouncing back of the light to the receiver.

Also the Light detection and ranging sensor also create a 3-D map of the car environment using the reflections gotten from the laser light.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) VERSUS SELF DRIVING CARS (AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE)
Is artificial intelligence in competition with self- driving cars? The question is pure no. In the beginning I made mention that the robot is just an interface between the user and the algorithm of the artificial intelligence. The truth is that self-driving cars are just another interface for artificial intelligence.

If we look at the operations of the self-driving cars and the artificial intelligence let say your forex bot, you will find so many similarities between the two instead of differences.

Let look at the similarities:

SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) AND SELF DRIVING CARS (AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE)
They are both programmed to take decisions without human interference:
Both the AI and the autonomous cars take decisions even when the human is either not there or not willing to take the decision at that time, let take a example of your forex bot, once you authorize it to take decisions based on some specified parameter, once those conditions set are fulfilled it take the decision whether you are sitting right before your system or not. The same happens when an autonomous car is driving, once the systems relays am obstacle at a specific distance it will either stop or veer off from the obstacle, whether the driver is awake or asleep.

They rely on a set of data for their operations:
Sure, both are programmable and once the data are set during the programming, that’s what the system will take as the standard, but once an error is detected in their operations, they can be reprogrammed to correct the error or even upgraded. But this doesn’t means they can’t adjust themselves according to some parameters they face at a particular time due to their sensors.

They both make mistakes:
Artificial intelligence make mistakes, Humans also make mistakes. So no matter how good both AI are, they are not free from mistakes. A regrettable mistake made by Uber self-driving car that led to a loss of life is one of such mistakes we are bound to see.