AI is rapidly evolving and making its presence felt across many sectors of society. From programming and education to healthcare, AI is steadily being integrated into our day-to-day routines to enhance our quality of living and make our lives easier.
One of the most exciting developments in AI is transportation, specifically the rise of autonomous vehicles. Autonomous vehicles can sense their environment and navigate without human input. These vehicles use various AI technologies to analyze sensor data and make real-time decisions, which can significantly change how we travel.
Let's take a closer look at autonomous vehicles. We'll discuss how they work and the benefits and challenges of autonomous vehicles. So buckle your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!
What are Autonomous Vehicles, and how do they Work?
For some people, the idea of self-driving cars sounds like something from a science fiction movie. And who can blame them? Humanity has reached a point where technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and autonomous vehicles are no exception. These vehicles are designed to operate without human intervention and mostly rely on technology to get you from point A to point B.
According to Hyundai, most autonomous driving systems generate an internal map of the vehicle's surroundings using various sensors. The collected data is processed by software–specifically AI–that charts a route and issues instructions to the car's acceleration, braking, and steering systems.
Moreover, self-driving vehicles can be "connected" to communicate with other vehicles or infrastructure, such as modern traffic lights.
Advantages of Autonomous Vehicles
Autonomous vehicles offer many benefits, such as reducing the likelihood of accidents, alleviating traffic congestion, and providing greater mobility for individuals with disabilities. Self-driving cars can also have a significant positive impact on the environment by reducing pollution.
Let's talk about these potential advantages that we can expect from the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles:
Increased Road Safety
According to an insurance report, if you're in Utah or California, you're probably driving among some of the worst drivers in the nation. In 2020, almost 4.7 million passenger cars were in traffic accidents in the United States. Moreover, motor vehicle accidents are among the leading causes of death for people under 55 in the United States. But, with autonomous vehicles, we can reduce the number of accidents caused by human error.
Autonomous vehicles could save millions of lives and reduce injuries and property damage. With advanced sensors and algorithms, autonomous vehicles can detect obstacles, pedestrians, and other cars on the road and respond to them accordingly. Recent research proved this to be the case.
In 2021, researchers explored the potential benefits and challenges of using automated vehicle technologies to reduce roadway fatalities and injuries. The article presented five research articles that evaluated the benefits of automated vehicles.
The benefits included systems like pedestrian safety notifications, driver behavior analysis with lane-keeping assist systems, adaptive cruise control, and automated driving in inclement weather. They also discussed the possibilities of quality-of-life features like gestures and voice input command integration.
Reduced Traffic Congestion
Traffic jams plague many US cities. Aside from road safety, self-driving cars can also be a potential solution to traffic congestion. Traffic jams are inconvenient and can cause us to miss appointments or be late. Traffic congestion can also cause industries to lose lots of money, especially the freight sector.
As of 2019, The US freight sector gets set back an annual cost of $74.1 billion due to congestion, $66.1 billion of which occurs in urban areas. Moreover, traffic congestion also leads to other expenses, including pollution and accidents, causing cities to lose billions of dollars annually. New York tops the list with losses amounting to $11 billion, followed by Los Angeles with over $8 billion.
By optimizing routes and reducing the number of cars on the road, autonomous vehicles could help reduce traffic congestion. This could lead to shorter commute times, less time spent stuck in traffic, and a more efficient transportation system, ultimately allowing more opportunities to save money.
However, before we implement self-driving cars into our traffic system, cities must be fully prepared and plan extensively for this new mode of transportation, especially regarding infrastructure. In a 2020 study, researchers used computer simulations to see how shared self-driving cars (SAVs) would affect traffic in the future and what cities could do to make things easier.
The results of the simulations showed that SAVs could reduce traffic, but they could also cause problems when unloading passengers and using narrow roads. The study also found that although having special lanes for SAVs did little to reduce total travel demand, having unique drop-off spots for SAVs could help, but only if more than 25% of cars on the road were SAVs.
Improved Accessibility
Autonomous vehicles could provide a new level of mobility and independence for individuals unable to drive due to age, disability, or other reasons. This could lead to improved quality of life and increased opportunities for employment, education, and social interaction.
Recent research has shown that people with disabilities are on board with integrating self-driving cars into society. In 2021, researchers studied how individuals with physical disabilities viewed autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a potential solution to their transportation challenges.
The researchers developed a survey and distributed it through disability networks. The survey results revealed that individuals with physical disabilities faced several issues related to transportation, such as cost and convenience. The participants were positive toward AVs and willing to pay for them if they had appropriate accessibility and safety features.
It Can Help the Environment
One of the most crucial benefits of self-driving cars is their potential to help the environment. Self-driving vehicles are electrically powered, and over their lifetime, greenhouse emissions associated with them are lower than internal combustion engines powered by gasoline. Moreover, since self-driving cars don't use gasoline, people can power their vehicles more sustainably.
In 2022, researchers reviewed various scientific literature on the environmental impacts autonomous vehicles (AVs) had on land, water, noise, and light pollution in addition to air. The results showed that AVs could be beneficial due to technical improvements, new design possibilities, and enhanced traffic flow.
However, it should be noted that although electrically-powered cars are the future of transportation, the parts used to manufacture them have been known to be sourced from exploitative means, especially cobalt. In 2017, the global demand for cobalt amounted to 71 thousand tons, forecasted to increase to 222 thousand tons by 2025.
This has led mining companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's largest cobalt supplier, to use "artisanal mining" to meet this demand. A 2023 special feature covered by NPR talks in more detail about the matter, initially citing that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the world's largest supplier of cobalt.
However, a significant portion is extracted by freelance "artisanal" miners who work in dangerous conditions for very little pay. These workers use primitive tools to extract cobalt from trenches and pits, and their working conditions are described as subhuman, grinding, and degrading.
As such, we must learn to find more ethical ways to source cobalt or find alternative materials to replace cobalt in producing electric car batteries. This will help to ensure that the environmental benefits of self-driving cars are not offset by the negative ethical implications of their production.
Challenges with Autonomous Vehicles
Although autonomous vehicles have the potential to improve transportation in the future, like all new forms of technology, it doesn't come without their fair share of caveats.
In a 2020 article on the recent developments, challenges, and possible solutions associated with self-driving cars, it's clear that AI may be the future of transportation. The article highlighted numerous benefits of self-driving vehicles, including increased safety and efficiency.
However, we must overcome many limitations and barriers before society adopts self-driving cars, such as safety and reliability, validation and testing, and the vehicle's orientation. The article also talked about the challenges associated with moral, ethical, and financial issues.
Let's discuss these barriers one by one to gain some valuable insight into the matter.
Safety and Reliability
Because autonomous vehicles rely on complex technology systems to operate, there is always the risk of system malfunctions and software glitches. These issues could potentially result in accidents, injuries, or even fatalities. The article documented the first fatal crash involving a self-driving car in 2018, raising concerns about the safety and maturity of the technology.
To address this, the University of Michigan proposed the Mcity ABC Test, which consisted of three components: Accelerated evaluation, Behaviour competence, and Corner cases. These tests focused on testing the safety and performance of autonomous vehicles in rigorous and challenging scenarios, including extreme conditions.
Accelerated evaluation tested self-driving cars in changing lanes, following other vehicles, and making left turns. Behavior competence testing evaluated how safe the cars were in 50 scenarios, like weather, lighting, and different types of sensors. Lastly, corner cases were the most challenging test conditions, which included detecting objects in dark or busy surroundings.
Validation and Testing
Before self-driving cars can be deployed on public roads, they must undergo extensive testing to ensure they operate safely and effectively. However, due to their complexity and uncertainty, traditional testing techniques may not be suitable for autonomous systems like self-driving cars.
Orientation
Autonomous vehicles must be able to navigate complex environments, such as busy city streets and highways, safely and efficiently. However, autonomous cars may sometimes face orientation challenges due to dynamic road situations like construction sites and missing road signs.
Different companies have adopted various strategies to overcome this challenge. For instance, Tesla, one of the leading proponents of self-driving cars, uses real-time image processing and machine learning, which helps the vehicle adapt to changing environmental conditions without relying on outdated maps.
General Motors and Mercedes Benz use laser imaging, detection, and ranging (LIDAR) to implement a pre-recorded 3D environmental map, enabling the vehicle to detect changes and respond accordingly. Lastly, Volkswagen uses "Vehicle-to-everything (V2X)" and "Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I)" technologies to create smarter environments and reduce the complexity of autonomous vehicle systems.
Legal Challenges
To deploy self-driving cars, laws and regulations must exist.
One big challenge is deciding who is responsible if there's an accident. With autonomous vehicles, the blame can shift from the driver to the company that made the car. So, laws need to be updated to consider this change and create policies that address the legalities of its use.
Moral and Ethical Issues
Autonomous cars might encounter moral dilemmas like endangering passengers' lives or hitting pedestrians. Currently, Germany is the only country with guidelines for these scenarios. According to their regulations, autonomous vehicles are prohibited from making decisions based on factors like age, gender, or health status when determining whose life takes priority.
Instead, the focus is on programming the car to minimize injuries in any unavoidable accidents. However, moral attitudes may differ among people. That's why companies must be transparent about their choices and justifications for such scenarios while carefully analyzing the risks and benefits of self-driving cars.
Financial Challenges
One challenge of autonomous vehicles is their high cost, which could make them unaffordable for most people. There are currently no fully-autonomous cars for sale in the US as of this writing, but a genuinely self-driving vehicle could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, which might not be the most practical solution for families living from paycheck to paycheck.
So, autonomous vehicle technology must become more affordable to ensure broader adoption in the future. Ride-sharing business models for autonomous vehicles, such as Cruise's 'Origin' vehicle, could help distribute costs to more individuals.
Conclusion
The rise of autonomous vehicles is an exciting development that has the potential to transform society and make the world a better place. Self-driving cars can help prevent accidents and traffic congestion, provide a better way for people with disabilities to travel, and help us live in a cleaner and greener tomorrow.
However, significant challenges must be addressed before autonomous vehicles become a reality for everyone, such as safety, testing, and vehicle orientation. Moreover, moral, ethical, and financial issues must be considered and resolved.
Regardless, we can still do something to ensure that AI-powered autonomous vehicles emerge to lead us into a safer and more accessible world. We can advocate for policy changes that prioritize safety, accessibility, and ethical considerations. We can also continue to engage in informed discussions with our community, share accurate information, and promote public awareness about benefits as well as critical concerns surrounding self-driving cars and their impact on our communities. In this chapter of human history, when technology once thought impossible is within reach, let's drive innovation forward, continue the dialogue and education on AI and autonomous vehicles, and practice using autonomous vehicles responsibly once they are widely available.