Hello, I'm a Johnny cab, where to sir?

Stan Beer
Monday, 19 February 2007 18:22

Your IT - Home IT

Somehow a computer controlled camera that can search for and take snapshots of rare birds or recognize faces in crowds doesn't quite do it for me, as useful as these devices may be. However, a computer controlled taxi like the Johnny cab in the movie Total Recall, now that's something I can use! And I might even get to ride in one in my lifetime.

At the massive American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) convention in San Francisco last week we heard about everything from climate change to meteor impacts but the one that captured my fancy was the prediction by a Stanford computer scientist that robot controlled cars are maybe just two decades away.

At least that's what Sebastian Thrun believes. And he should know because in 2005 he won a robotic car race contest sponsored by the Pentagon, he has built a prototype robot car and he was one of four scientists to address the AAAS conference on the subject of robotics.

However, Thrun wasn't concerned about using robots to save species of birds or building bionic limbs, leaving those nobel pursuits to other brilliant minds. What he was concerned about is teaching robots to drive cars at least as well as humans and preferably better - no mean feat.

With computer storage and memory capacity approaching that of the human brain one would think such a task is simply a matter of time. The problem is that in order to drive and navigate a car safely, a computer controlled robot has to be trained to recognize objects, think and react like a human. This requires rather intricate sensing devices to act as the eyes of the robot and sophisticated software that can teach the robot to react appropriately and in a timely fashion to the inputs it receives.

Sensing devices are available and there is artificial intelligence software that has the ability to learn through trial and error much like humans. However, neither technologies are yet near the required level of sophistication or power for humans to allow a robot to take them safely for a Sunday drive.

So, like Total Recall, it looks we might have to wait for an era when Mars is colonized before a Johnny cab will pull up to kerb and ask us where we would like to be dropped off.