October 24, 2005

Eventually, They Will Have A Killswitch For Us...

I know I'm about two weeks late to this party, but circumstances led me to Wikipedia's entry for the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. I was quite impressed with the robot vehicles' improvements over last year's Challenge, where none of the competitors got to the 8-mile mark, but I noticed a couple of disturbing things:

  • Golem2: Out of race at 22 miles; software bug crashed main computer causing 60mph rampage.
  • NaviGATOR: Out of race at 14 miles; lost control pushing speed past known tolerances
  • Alice: Out of race at 8 miles; after GPS reacquisition, veered over barrier and towards media.
Sure, safety devices prevented any real problems, but any vehicle we make smart enough to auto-navigate will eventually be smart enough to circumvent them.

And thus will begin the Age Of The Machines.

Posted by Chris at October 24, 2005 11:07 AM

Category: General Weirdness
Comments

From what it sounds like here, we're already at the point where machines can imitate human behavior. The first two are perfect examples of "watch this!" and the last is clearly retaliation against the paparazzi.

Posted by: chess h at October 24, 2005 01:10 PM

Yes; clearly, that last one is the most highly evolved of the group.

Posted by: Chris of Dangerous Logic at October 24, 2005 01:40 PM

I've done all of these things without automation of any type!

Posted by: 2!3054). at October 24, 2005 01:52 PM