“We have a very long way to go.”
Ford CEO Jim Farley used these words to describe the reality of the entire self-driving industry following the late October decision to shut down Argo AI, a venture that had received nearly $1 billion in investment over the past six years. Argo AI was a major and respected player, known in the industry for its safe approach to risky projects like testing robots on public roads in at least eight cities across the US and Germany. The abrupt decision to lay off 2,000 employees made the news even more shocking.
Ford, which has decided to bring some of these engineers and technicians in-house, says it will focus on a clear technological bet: Level 2 and Level 3 automated ‘driver assistance.’ By shifting its focus to supporting technology that can be sold to today’s car buyers,implementing a strategy that breaks down the path to autonomous driving until consumers and society are more readyhas revealed that this is the best option for future business performance and to alleviate investor concerns.
Furthermore, questions have been raised about the legality of the industry's self-driving technology. Tesla is currently under criminal investigation by the US Department of Justice for promoting an upgrade it calls ‘Full Self-Driving,’ while still advising drivers to keep their hands on the wheel. The phenomenon of users sharing tips on how to use a water bottle to hold the steering wheel and sleep while relying on the FSD function exemplifies the Department of Justice's concerns.
For people, self-driving cars are perceived as a way to free them from driving and enabling them to do something else.It's clear that this is an area where the limitations of current technology have yet to be reached. Therefore, the future direction of questions needed in the industry should not focus on the technological completion of the system, but rather onthe meaning that humans assign to itIt means that the significance of automation lies not in simply transferring human roles to machine roles, but in subtly reorganizing the entire activity and altering the meaning of driving for those who participate in or interact with it.
Of course, the evolution of technology always clashes between progress and the realities of necessity. Society and legal frameworks tend to react one step behind technology. In fact, engineers face these dilemmas every day. But because of this, the following question is necessary before investing in technology:“So what is this technology really for?”
Transportation Technology Services (TTS), headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, has created a product called the Personal Signal Assistant, a platform that allows vehicles to communicate with traffic signals. Currently operating in 26 North American cities and two European cities, this system has significantly reduced driver stress by allowing drivers to see the remaining time until the red light changes to green.
TTS CEO Thomas Bauer, who partners with Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, and a few other corporate clients, explains that their product is very effective in improving the driving experience for drivers both before and after the completion of fully autonomous driving technology. However, despite this,because their technology still doesn't eliminate the driver's presence and role, it is difficult to attract deep interest from investors.he says.
Does current investment in full self-driving technology provide the autonomy that drivers expect? As voluntary testers in the process of achieving technological perfection, what are people expecting and giving up? If full self-driving technology is completed, will it truly be confirmed that people wanted it?
If you enter AI-related keywords such as blockchain, metaverse, etc., into Google, you will see a fairly similar set of images. In a sense, this is because many companies developing these technologies are truly confused about how to apply these technologies to people in the most meaningful way. In such situations, an observation-based approach centered on understanding what is truly important to people from an overall perspective, what real problems related technologies can solve, and what phenomena can be understood is effective, free from existing hypotheses.
“How can self-driving cars form a relationship with drivers that is helpful to them?”The industry needs to refer to the following three universal principles that ReD Associates, a consulting firm that proposes solutions to representative phenomenon-centered problems, presented as an answer to the above question in 2019.
First, not all tasks need to be automated. People consider agency in higher-level strategic and identity-related tasks most important. For example, instead of technology replacing the fun role of a father curating a family trip, people expect automation to find a parking space at their destination.
Second, automation should always be premised on maintaining the sense that people can check and control the entire situation. Drivers attempting Tesla's Full Self-Driving feature experience a sense of novelty alongside the tension of needing to grip the steering wheel at any moment.
According to a 2018 study by Kempten University of Applied Sciences, travel using vehicles with self-driving technology caused more stress for drivers and passengers than travel in conventional vehicles. This was primarily due to the unfamiliar feeling of handing control over to a machine for high-speed driving and the lingering tendency for the system to fail in certain situations. This anxiety associated with loss of control, linked to mode confusion that causes cognitive confusion between automatic and manual modes in aircraft operation, tends to elicit a negative human response to automation.
Third, automated system interfaces should clearly delineate the limits of their capabilities. People often yell at or ignore Alexa, Siri, and in-vehicle navigation systems. Personalized interfaces cause confusion about the capabilities and limitations of technology, so people prefer to give instructions to a limited but clear interface, as they would when interacting with a dog they raised who knows the training they have received.
The car space, where driving is no longer necessary, will undoubtedly offer people the opportunity to have completely different experiences. The arrangement of seats will no longer need to face forward, leading to innovative investments in the automotive manufacturing process, or automakers' partnerships with OTT companies to provide in-vehicle media content will intensify.
However, on the other hand, we are also confirming that the optimistic promise of self-driving cars cannot magically solve the problem of more than 1.3 million road deaths worldwide each year. Perhaps for this reason, the best topic for the present and future of self-driving technology development still seems closer to ‘drivers assisted by cars’ rather than ‘cars that embrace humans.’
*This article is the original content published in the December 13, 2022 issue ofElectronic Times named column.
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