The Byzantine Generals Problem and AI Autonomous Cars - AI Trends

Let's examine the topic of things that work only intermittently, which as you'll soon see is a crucial topic for intelligently designing and building AI systems, especially for self-driving autonomous cars. First, a story to illuminate the matter. My flashlight was only working intermittently, so I shook it to get the bulb to shine, hoping to cast some steady light. One moment the flashlight had a nice strong beam and the next moment it was faded and not of much use. At times, the light emanating from the flashlight would go on-and-off or it would dip so close to being off that I would shake it vigorously and generally the light would momentarily revive. We were hiking in the mountains as part of our Boy Scout troop's wilderness-survival preparations and I was an adult Scoutmaster helping to make sure that none of the Scouts got hurt during the exercise. At this juncture, it was nearly midnight and the moon was providing just enough natural light that the Scouts could somewhat see the trail we were on. We had been instructed to not use flashlights since the purpose of this effort was to gauge readiness for surviving in the forests without having much in-hand other than the clothes on your back. There were some parts of the trail that meandered rather close to a sheer cliff and I figured that adding some artificial light to the situation would be beneficial. Yes, I was tending to violate the instructions about not using a flashlight, but I was also trying to abide by the even more important principle to make sure that none of the Scouts got injured or perished during this exercise. Turns out that I had taken along an older flashlight that was at the bottom of my backpack and mainly there for emergency situations. At camp, I had plenty of newer flashlights and had brought tons of batteries as part of my preparation for this trip.