AI — Artificial Intelligence for cars & our Test Track

This article is part 2 of 4 in a series written by Turing Motor Company’s CEO: Ned Goodhue. This series outlines the history and Turing Motors approach to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and their role in autonomous vehicles.

We have established by our previous articles to Medium that Turing Motors’s leadership has deep knowledge about AI.

In our previous article we talked about a form of learning that cannot be done without AI.

We call it:

“Triangulation in Place and Time”

It is “intelligence” because the information that is generated is very useful and unique.

It can monitor 100+ objects in a way that is highly useful and beyond a human’s understanding.

And it is critical to Level 5+ AV’s.

“Discover the Predictive Attributes” of each moving thing.

Our team invented this AI when trying to do more accurate underwriting when pricing Property and Casualty (P&C) risk.

Cars are a P&C risk as well as hospitals and airlines etc. The goal is to understand the most powerful attribute of a driver (of some other car) or for hospitals, their cyber risk.

Turns out that the most predictive attribute for a hospital’s cyber risk. Guess what it turned out to be: If the hospital was a teaching hospital or not.

How can this be useful in AVs?

“How can we tell if a car is about to change its course?” That is very useful in a round-about or if a car is about to change lanes. Look at the front tires. If its front tires are moving is the very first thing that will tell us.

This piece of AI needs lots of data. It’s perfect for our Test Track.

Positional Technology

We solved another critical aspect of a safe full-speed AV — positional technology. We would not call it AI as none of it is artificial. It is simple measuring.

Turing Motors creates a unique 3D map for all of our cars and for all the cars that are using our technology.

We have 3 different sources for our “positional” data.

• We have a partner that creates accurate 3D positional information:
• Satellites give us 4 cm accuracy around the world.
• Sold state INS gives us that 4 cm accuracy in tunnels and canyons with accuracy as to time.
• We have a well-respected map vendor.
• We use imaging and triangulation with an accuracy of 4 mm.
• Our car’s own pictures will add to the map on and off the map.

With these multi-sources, our cars will be able to drive safely in any situation.

How can we deal with drivers who are not looking or are asleep?

The answer is: our cars will always be doing the driving.

It can “go home” or “park” with nobody in it.

And when there is a driver who is having fun driving his car, he is still under the control of the car. The wheel feels like he is driving, and he is…. if he is driving safely. The car will let the driver cross the line if it is safe to do so. Exceed the speed limit if it is safe.

When the driver is driving in a way that they are doing no harm, the car is 100% responsive.

But when the driver is about to do something that will cause harm, the car brings it back into the safe zone.

That is simple and safe.

What have we NOT figured out.

We have not figured out our steering wheel. Do we make it disappear? Does it move as the wheels are? Should it be a round wheel that simply stops when it is not being used? You want to ‘drive’, do you just put your hands on the wheel?

We have not figured out if a police car wants to stop it but in the car is one of your children.

We have not figured out the regulations and how they are going to react with the idea that driving might not be driving. If it is going too fast who gets the ticket? Driver, or Turing Motors?

Who owns the data generated by the car?

This article was written by Ned Goodhue. Ned is the Founder and CEO of Turing Motor Company. Ned is passionate about all things AI. Ned is also passionate about aviation, travelling, understanding different cultures, theatre, and reading.

Feel free to leave a comment, whether you agree or disagree, we encourage a collaborative discourse. Thank you.

-Turing Motor Company

Index

Algorithm — A well-defined steps that a computer can do that the author wants. It can be a result or an action.

Analytics — a tool or solution

Attribute — a quality or characteristic of a person, place, or thing

Bombe — the machine that Alan Turing made at Bletchley Park to break the code of Germany’s Enigma code. The nickname of Bombe was “Victory.”

Calculable — It is possible to come up with an accurate answer in time to be useful.

Incalculable — The answer will be either wrong or it arrives too late to be useful.

Predictive — foretelling the future. Especially useful in insurance, in a war, or predicting what that car over there will do. This is sometimes called Predictive Analytics.

Proactive — A car can be smart enough to tell us something is go wrong before it fails. That goes with parts, too.

Reactive — waiting until something fails.

Restore — to bring (one of our used cars) back to perfect condition. We will do it with all our cars every 3–4 years.