Steve Wozniak: AI Will Never Be Smart Enough to Drive a Car

Megalith

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Steve Wozniak doesn’t have high hopes for self-driving car technology: speaking at a recent Mastercard event, the Apple co-founder doubled down on driverless vehicles being a moonshoot and warned they wouldn’t be a reality any time soon. Part of his reasoning is that AI employed in autonomous vehicles can’t interpret the unexpected: “Artificial intelligence in cars is trained to spot everything that is normal on the roads, not something abnormal.”

“They have to drive on human roads,” Wozniak said, according to Arabian Business. "If they had train tracks, [there would be] no problem at all. I don't believe that sort of 'vision intelligence' is going to be like a human." According to Wozniak, autonomous cars will struggle with unforeseen circumstances that are common in a real-world driving scenario.
 
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ChadD

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I respect The Woz a lot. In this case however I think he greatly over estimates the intelligence of his fellow man.

Human intelligence leads people too a lot of very deadly errors... such as the tendency for people to steer directly into things they intend to miss when they unexpectedly end up on a shoulder ect. Every first responder has multiple stories of finding people wrapped around trees in the middle of an otherwise empty field.

There are cases where the simple 0/1 logic of AI will be far superior and save lives.
 
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Nytegard

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Tsumi said:
Never say never. It will happen eventually. Machine learning has come a long way these past few years, and it's only going to keep getting faster and smarter.
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Yep. In the 60s and 70s, they said AI would never be good enough to defeat a human in chess. Than it became go. Both of those, the AI leads now.

The only reason I've heard that makes sense about why you'll never see self driven cars is due to the legal responsibility of an entity that commits an accident. Right now, if you run someone over, and kill them, you're at fault. There are about 35000 motor vehicle deaths a year. So, if self driving cars take over, and that brings it down to 1000 a year, that's a huge improvement, but the question becomes, who's at fault? It's obviously the company which created the car, and now they're going to be sued a lot. And the question becomes, can they possibly have enough financial security to survive that many lawsuits per year?
 
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lironmiron

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Well, I agree

But when people say this, they always fail to add that we continue to prove every day that humans "Will Never Be Smart Enough to Drive a Car" either.

Humans fail with unforeseen circumstances that are common in a real-world driving scenarios hundreds of times every single day.

What AI brings to the table is not "being better with unforeseen circumstances" but to greatly reduce the number of unforeseen circumstances (caused by human drivers) and the inefficiencies (caused by human drivers) on the roads.
 
Tsumi

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Nytegard said:
Yep. In the 60s and 70s, they said AI would never be good enough to defeat a human in chess. Than it became go. Both of those, the AI leads now.

The only reason I've heard that makes sense about why you'll never see self driven cars is due to the legal responsibility of an entity that commits an accident. Right now, if you run someone over, and kill them, you're at fault. There are about 35000 motor vehicle deaths a year. So, if self driving cars take over, and that brings it down to 1000 a year, that's a huge improvement, but the question becomes, who's at fault? It's obviously the company which created the car, and now they're going to be sued a lot. And the question becomes, can they possibly have enough financial security to survive that many lawsuits per year?
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No fault insurance, or in other words, force of nature insurance, if it was deemed an unfortunate part failure rather than an inherent defect or design flaw. More easily handled than you would think. Airplane insurance have been covering these kinds of deaths for decades.
 
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alamox

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as if human driven cars can cope well with unforseen circumstances, as long as it's fail rate is below human that's a +, beside it wouldn't surprise me to see gouvernements banning human driving for 100 IA trafic for specific areas...ppl would get free car upgrades :)
 
5150Joker

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Simple solution: Eliminate the human factor from driving on roads once AI powered cars are prevalent in 15-20 years and the problem will be solved. Just don't allow people to drive their vehicles on highways and you'd eliminate a big chunk of congestion right there.
 
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S-F

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This guy is dead wrong. It's already here. A highway populated entirely with Teslas driving themselves at speed would see no accidents.
 
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alamox

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S-F said:
This guy is dead wrong. It's already here. A highway populated entirely with Teslas driving themselves at speed would see no accidents.
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dunno about that, with musk stepping down as Tesla CEO.
 
Krenum

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I agree. Because AI doesn't factor emotion into decision making, its based on probability and percentages. iRobot. Great book.
 
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Ranulfo

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""If they had train tracks, [there would be] no problem at all."

Road rails for everyone! Autonomous trolley like cars everywhere. No cars without rails allowed, problem solved!


/s
 
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It could only work if every car on the road was AI-driven and networked to all the other cars. On top of that, pedestrians and bicyclists would need to be kept well clear. We would basically need to turn our roads into railway systems.
 
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collegeboy69us

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tetris42 said:
Even in snow, black ice, flooding, deer running out into the highway, birds swooping down, etc.
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Snow/blackice/flooding... those can be accounted for trained for, and with the right sensors I can see cars scanning analyzing how deep the snow/water/etc is and saying "yes we can make it or, no road too dangerous finding another route". If the car can figure out it can't get through those things then thats all the excuse I need to not show up wherever I'm going.

Deer running in the road, or birds swooping down. AI or no AI, you either have a safe way to avoid it (which AI or humans could do) or you just hit it. There's already more than enough incidents of humans avoiding an animal on the road and injuring or killing themselves and others.

They give licenses to a wet sponge these days, despite what you may think there are people legally driving out there that are dumb as a brick and selfish as hell who have no business being behind the wheel. I like woz, but he's dead wrong with his statement. It's not about being smart enough to drive a car, humans have proven that. I'd happily sacrifice arriving a few minutes faster for a slower/safer trip where you don't have to worry about drunks, some fat whore texting, or a soccer mom blindly cutting off 3 lanes of traffic so she can make her exit despite her piss poor planning.
 
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B770

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if it ever happens it wont be for a good 50-60 years, its not just the AI that needs to improve but the basic infrastructure of ALL the roads. otherwise its never going to work. if humans cant control the car/truck then how is my trip out to the hunting shak in the way back woods on the rutted old logging road with huge puddles and overgrown brush in the way. i just go around things or straight through them, a AI probably would melt down or just lock up and refuse to move. no matter how much "smarter" a AI gets, its always going to have a algorithm that takes into account all the variables that have been programmed into it. there is no way that every scenario that could conceivably happen can be programmed in , as there is always an unknown. also take into account that your new AI nightmare car getting hacked and going crazy. once any new gadget goes mainstream it gets attention it wont want, and over and over we see the "totaly secure 100% hackprof" get owned....its just a matter of when not if.
 
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steakman1971

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I think we'll see more driver-assist AI. That said, machine learning has made leaps and bounds in recent times. Hell, anyone remember when SAM (C64 talking program) was awesome? Nowadays, meh.
I think we have a long way to go on total AI driving vehicles. I look at the machine learning I use for my job - it's nice for specific areas, but still needs a human to control it. (After that, sit back as the algorithms will run circles around the people using it.)
 
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NeoNemesis

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It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be better than us, which is not a particularly high bar.

Most drivers I see these days spend as much time staring at their phones as they do watching the road. At the very least AI is always ready to deal with expected dangers.
 
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tetris42

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NeoNemesis said:
It doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be better than us, which is not a particularly high bar.

Most drivers I see these days spend as much time staring at their phones as they do watching the road. At the very least AI is always ready to deal with expected dangers.
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No, it needs to be almost perfect, because as soon as there's one death from them, then the politicians will come out of the woodwork and try to shut it down. It doesn't matter if humans will be 10x more likely to get in an accident, a robot murdered your family and the news will run with it.
 
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NeoNemesis

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tetris42 said:
No, it needs to be almost perfect, because as soon as there's one death from them, then the politicians will come out of the woodwork and try to shut it down. It doesn't matter if humans will be 10x more likely to get in an accident, a robot murdered your family and the news will run with it.
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For a few months that may be true. As soon as car accidents involving AI become common place the news will stop covering them and the political will to do anything will begin to evaporate. People have an incredibly short attention span and there is always a new perceived danger to draw public attention away from an old threat.
 
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Burticus

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Yeah I think the problem isn't with the AI interacting with road signs etc or unforseen road conditions... it's the other freaking idiots on the road that drive like asshats. Obviously I see stupid shit every time I'm in the car. But when I have to drive downtown for work (Dallas) I am constantly amazed at the stupid shit I see other people do. Every. Single. Time. And sadly (but not surprising) the people with the high end cars tend to drive like giant assholes too. I've been going 80 and been buzzed by a McLaren on the DNT like I was standing still. And then there's the total other end of the spectrum. The people driving beater cars and trucks that couldn't possibly pass a cursory inspection (and you know none of them have insurance, even though it's "illegal" to not have liability). Dudes in 30 year old pickup trucks hauling trailers full of lawnmowers or construction equipment and crap driving on the freeways like lanes aren't a thing.

Ok, off rant. Yeah, if I can barely handle this stuff without getting into daily accidents, I don't see how AI is going to do it either. Maybe there needs to be "AI" lanes (like bike lanes?) on the roads, where everyone goes 5 under the speed limit. But then again, I've seen asshats drive in bike lanes, so.. yeah.
 
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Smoeki

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Wouldn't be surprised if he is correct. I think it will come in time, not counting on it anytime soon however.

Every time I see people praising current AI it doesn't seem all that amazing, not the tech behind it, just the end result. Now toss in bad weather, snow, mud etc obscuring sensors and the crazy shit people do... Next add in the lack of proper upkeep on these sensors. The AI has to figure all this out logically.


I'll believe it when I see it. I think there are a lot of grandiose claims being made about AI in it's current form.
 
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iamjanco

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Meh, 50 or 60 years from now Boinc crunchers will have solved the mysteries of the universe, with the help of Leatherjacket's A.I. Pocket-sized, portable, black-hole iPortation devices will be a thing, and we'll all be climbing into them to get from point a to b, (doing away with the need for Planes, Trains & Automobiles). That said, there will always be some unfortunate idiot who forgets to take their dongle with them...

...well, okay, not all of us. I'll be long gone worm fodder and/or recycled Soylent Green.
 
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Accursed

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Woz is a Tesla hater, not sure why. But it's silly to say NEVER. Like when AI could never beat a human at chess, or like when AI could never win at Go (chinese chess). It's an eventuallity. It WILL happen.
 
hlfbkd420

hlfbkd420

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BlueFireIce said:
Guess he doesn't understand how shitty the average driver is. Self driving AI has a really low bar to over come.
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I came here to say something similar but you said it better...

If they want to train ai to drive, they should start in sun city...
 
hlfbkd420

hlfbkd420

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Accursed said:
Woz is a Tesla hater, not sure why. But it's silly to say NEVER. Like when AI could never beat a human at chess, or like when AI could never win at Go (chinese chess). It's an eventuallity. It WILL happen.
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Not so hard to understand for me... I consider tesla drivers to be about the same as Prius drivers.
 
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