Russia's capital city of Moscow will soon be home to an ambitious autonomous tram project, joining Germany and China as the leading testbeds for the technology. Self-driving vehicles are not currently legal in Moscow or anywhere else. Autonomous trains and trams are stepping stones to full self-driving vehicles, thanks to their defined routes, but retain some of the hardest challenges cars face: knowing when obstacles, people, or vehicles are in their paths. That's because they use public space, and even though there may be fencing or other barriers in some locations, people, vehicles, and other obstacles are still real concerns. A view from the automated tram.Cognitive Technologies That's the challenge that Cognitive Technologies CEO Olga Uskova says her company is close to solving.

Terrible traffic, prayer-inducing merges, road signs that are all but impossible to read, dangerous road conditions, and drivers who hazard sudden, scream-worthy maneuvers, all add to Moscow's commuting woes. Sadly, this is what 98% of the world's roads are like, and why one Russian company, Cognitive Technologies Group, may come out ahead in the race to birth the self-driving car. President and founder of the group Olga Uskova, is skeptical of Silicon Valley's sunny projections of when autonomous vehicles will go mainstream. The reason, she told The Guardian was that there are too many variables in most places to look out for. In Moscow for instance, "The environment is ever-changing: the snow has covered traffic signs; it's raining on your windshield, the sun is blocking you. Our people train using these kinds of data."

In certain sunny climes, self-driving cars are multiplying. Dressed in signature spinning sensors, the vehicles putter along roads in California, Arizona and Nevada, hoovering up data that will one day make them smart enough to run without humans. Besides perennial sunshine, those places share other common traits: wide, well-manicured roads, functional traffic enforcement, and agreeable local governments. That's how Chandler, Arizona – a Phoenix suburb on nobody's radar as of a few weeks ago – became the first US town to host autonomous cars on public streets without human safety drivers. Courtesy of Waymo, they're expected to start carrying passengers within the next few months.

As Russia's government develops a digital economy, organisations are stepping up the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. Every conference this year contains a dead human genius reincarnated as software system or a robot. Yes, there is a lot of hype, but there is real worth in AI and Machine Learning. Read our counseling on how to avoid adopting "black box" approach. You forgot to provide an Email Address.