Can 'air traffic control' make self-driving cars cheap and safe? - Futurity

You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license. Combining human and artificial intelligence in autonomous vehicles could push self-driving cars more quickly toward wide-scale adoption, researchers say. That's the goal of a new project that relies on a technique called instantaneous crowdsourcing to provide a cost-effective, real-time remote backup for onboard autonomous systems without the need for a human to be physically in the driver's seat. "Today's autonomous vehicles can drive relatively well in typical settings, but they fail in exceptional situations…" The need for human safety drivers in vehicles like Waymo's recently introduced autonomous taxis undermines their cost advantage compared to traditional ride sharing services, the researchers say. It also keeps the era of cars as autonomous rolling living rooms tantalizingly out of reach.