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Uber talks of deal with Daimler which shows Uber’s great advantage

I generally pay very little attention when companies issue a press release about an “alliance.” It’s usually not a lot more than a press release, unless there are details on what will actually b...
10 February 2017, by

California publishes robocar intervention reports: Google/Waymo vastly outpaces competition

California published its summary of all the reports submitted by vendors testing robocars in the state. You can read the individual reports. They are interesting, but several other outlines have creat...
08 February 2017, by

The infrastructure of life part 2: Transparency

Part 2: Autonomous Systems and Transparency In my previous post I argued that a wide range of AI and Autonomous Systems (from now on I will just use the term AS as shorthand for both) should be reg...
03 February 2017, by

Flying cars are coming, what will they mean?

Earlier I posted my gallery of CES gadgets and included a photo of the eHang 184 from China, a “personal drone” able, in theory, to carry a person up to 100kg. Whether the eHang is real or not...
27 January 2017, by

The infrastructure of life part 1: Safety

Part 1: Autonomous Systems and Safety We all rely on machines. All aspects of modern life, from transport to energy, work to welfare, play to politics depend on a complex infrastructure of physical...
26 January 2017, by

NHTSA ODI report exonerates Tesla in fatal crash

NHTSA released the report from their Office of Defects Investigation on the fatal Tesla crash in Florida last spring. It’s a report that is surprisingly favorable to Tesla. So much so that even I am...
20 January 2017, by



CES 2017, part one: Robocar technology and concept cars

CES is the big event for major car makers to show off robocar technology. Most of the north hall, and a giant parking lot next to it, were devoted to car technology and self-driving demos....
17 January 2017, by

No, a Tesla didn’t predict an accident and brake for it

You may have seen a lot of press around a dashcam video of a car accident in the Netherlands. It shows a Tesla in AutoPilot hitting the brakes around 1.4 seconds before a red car crashes hard into a b...
11 January 2017, by

De-automation is a thing

We tend to assume that automation is a process that continues - that once some human activity has been automated there's no going back. That automation sticks. But, as Paul Mason pointed out in a rece...
29 December 2016, by

Jibo look-alike appears on Chinese websites

For all of us who participated in the Jibo IndieGoGo crowdfunding and are anxiously awaiting delivery - which has been delayed again - this Chinese knock-off came as quite a surprise....
29 December 2016, by

Ethically Aligned Design

Having been involved in roboethics for some years, I was delighted when the IEEE launched its initiative on Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems, early this year. Especially so because ...
27 December 2016, by

What are the right disability rules for robotaxis?

Robocars are broadly going to be a huge boon for many people with disabilities, especially disabilities that make it difficult to drive or those that make it hard to get in and out of vehicles. Exist...
26 December 2016, by

Designing robots with bugs??

Ask a child to design a robot, and they’ll produce a drawing that looks a little like you or I—the parts may be gray and boxy, but it will have two arms, two legs, and a head (probably with an ant...
26 December 2016, by

Google car is now Waymo

Google’s car project (known as “Chauffeur”) kickstarted the entire robocar revolution, and Google has put in more work, for longer, than anybody. The car was also the first project of what becam...
14 December 2016, by

What if the city ran Waze and you had to obey it? Could this cure congestion?

I believe we have the potential to eliminate a major fraction of traffic congestion in the near future, using technology that exists today which will be cheap in the future. The method has been outlin...
09 December 2016, by

Robocar news: Comma One goes open source, creating simulations for robocars in New Zealand earthquakes

There have been few postings this month, as I took the time to enjoy a holiday in New Zealand around speaking at the SingularityU New Zealand summit in Christchurch. The night before the summit, we en...
02 December 2016, by

The Ford factor: Mad scientists and corporate villains

Please note: The following article may contain spoilers up to Episode 5 of Westworld. HBO’s Westworld (on Sky Atlantic here in the UK) is progressing nicely, though even now at five episodes in ...
16 November 2016, by

Should both the successes and failures of space robots curb the ambition of a manned Mars mission?

Late morning, red skies over Mars, and the first human interloper emerges from her landing craft to review the dusty expanse. As she eases carefully down the ladder towards the alien earth, her mind s...
11 November 2016, by

Comma.ai cancels comma-one add-on box after threats from NHTSA

Comma.ai, the brash startup attempting to make a self-driving system entirely from a neural network has announced it will cancel the “comma one” add-on box it has planned to sell to owners of cert...
31 October 2016, by

Why watching Westworld’s robots should make us question ourselves

For a sci-fi fan like me, fascinated by the nature of human intelligence and the possibility of building life-like robots, it’s always interesting to find a new angle on these questions. As a re-ima...
21 October 2016, by

Automation should complement professional expertise, not replace it

Will your next doctor be an app? A cost-cutting NHS wants more patients to act as “self-carers,” with some technologized assistance. A series of flowcharts and phone trees might tell parents whose...
19 October 2016, by

The new Westworld: Humanizing the un-human, or dehumanizing humankind?

HBO’s latest offering (on SkyAtlantic here in the UK) is an update of Michael Crichton‘s 1973 film Westworld; this time brought to us as a ten-part television series by sci-fi re-booter extraordin...
18 October 2016, by

The Robot Economy: Interview with MEP Mady Delvaux

In our final interview in The Robot Economy series, we speak with Mady Delvaux, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and Chair of the Working Group on robotics. Mady has written an extensive draft ...
08 October 2016, by

The four coolest NASA robots

NASA may be known for sending men to the moon, establishing the International Space Station, and planning for a base on Mars—but apart from astronauts, its best-known spokesmen aren’t men at all...
06 October 2016, by

The Robot Economy: Interview with Alan Manning

In today’s interview, we sat down with Alan Manning, Professor of Labour Economics at the London School of Economics. He is a leading author in his field, particularly in understanding the imperfect...
27 September 2016, by

Robocar parking is incredibly cheap

Some people have wondered about my forecast in the spreadsheet on robotaxi economics about the very low parking costs I have predicted. I wrote about most of the reasons for this in my 2007 essay on R...
27 September 2016, by

Critique of NHTSA’s newly released regulations

The long awaited list of recommendations and potential regulations for robocars has just been released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency that regulates ...
22 September 2016, by

Robocar recap: Tesla radar, MobilEye fight, and the Comma One $1,000 add-on-box

Tesla’s spat with MobilEye reached a new pitch this week with Tesla announcing a new release of their autopilot and plans. As reported earlier, MobilEye announced during the summer that they would n...
20 September 2016, by

What artificial intelligence will look like in 2030

Artificial intelligence (AI) has already transformed our lives — from the autonomous cars on the roads to the robotic vacuums and smart thermostats in our homes. Over the next 15 years, AI technolog...
16 September 2016, by and

Breaking down robotaxi economics

The vision of many of us for robocars is a world of less private car ownership and more use of robotaxis — on-demand ride service in a robocar. That’s what companies like Uber clearly are pushing ...
14 September 2016, by







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