[anup996]

BMW 3 Series Driverless Prototype Testing in India

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyl-EaBLOAc&t=3s

[GTO]

Nice, but please don't run them on public roads. I don't even trust the autonomous technology of Tesla on USA roads with their awesome road discipline, so something like this on Indian roads (where IMHO autonomous will NEVER work) is a scary thought. As much as I'd hate one of these banging into my car, I shudder at the plight of more vulnerable bikers & pedestrians.

Like we have seen with EVs, there will be a lot of new startups trying to crack the self-driving code. The government should ban all of them from testing on public roads, at least until the technology is proven. Go test it on private property (lots available in India) or abroad (many States & Countries allow it). Then come back on Indian roads only once your product has matured.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by GTO

Nice, but please don't run them on public roads. I don't even trust the autonomous technology of Tesla on USA roads with their awesome road discipline, so something like this on Indian roads (where IMHO autonomous will NEVER work) is a scary thought. As much as I'd hate one of these banging into my car, I shudder at the plight of more vulnerable bikers & pedestrians.

Like we have seen with EVs, there will be a lot of new startups trying to crack the self-driving code. The government should ban all of them from testing on public roads, at least until the technology is proven. Go test it on private property (lots available in India) or abroad (many States & Countries allow it). Then come back on Indian roads only once your product has matured.

Disagree.

You don't learn to drive a car by driving it around a closed track. Especially in India, where you need to learn how to be vigilant of other road users.

These tests should be done on public roads with a driver at all times in order to override the system in case of emergencies. I completely agree that these tests should not be done without a test driver in the driver seat.

Pretty sure that with machine learning, these systems can learn those emergency circumstances or behaviours of other road users and take appropriate action depending on the overriding done by the test driver. It will happen. It's only the question of when it'll become reliable enough.

More than anywhere else, India needs autonomous cars to reduce road accidents. We don't train our drivers to drive carefully and neither do our pedestrians care about their lives. With autonomous cars, it will know what to do the minute it drives out of the showroom. Might be slow but atleast statistically safer than human beings who can't concentrate 100% all the time.

With absurd speed limits like 30-50 kmph in random stretches of the highway being enforced, I'd rather let the car drive rather than break my bank with senseless rules. Driving in India is slowly becoming a pain

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by GTO

Then come back on Indian roads only once your product has matured.

Unfortunately, these AI systems require real-life data to mature as a product. GTO, I don't see any issue with these vehicles plying on our roads with driver supervision. In case of an emergency, the driver can take over.

I highly recommend you watch the below video, if you haven't watched it already. The software part starts from 42:30 onwards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b041NXGPZ8

[itwasntme]

What are the MoRTH regulations for providing permission for such autonomous cars to use public roads? When OEM and/or ARAI testing is done with big posters announcing this fact, how does an autonomous car drive around with no signs apart from the hardware on top?

Maybe the experts can comment?

[Hayek]

Agree fully that there is no country that needs autonomous driving cars more than India. Most Indian drivers don’t know how to drive. The only challenge I see is that when you train these cars in India, the neural networks learn based on what they see - and you could well end up with self driving cars trained to drive like the average Indian road user - with the lane divider acting as a centre line for the car, or blinkers turned on in tunnels

[aargee]

Basically, it's not just the country & regulations that needs to be addressed, even the AI is still in its most primitive stage. Consider a typical hypothetical situation that's very hard to gauge.

A car that's self driving on a mountainous road has it's owner sleeping in the rear. All of a sudden there's a child jumps on the road to pickup his/her doll/ball. Car makes a calculation that, it certainly cannot apply brakes in time from hitting the child. Now what should the car do?
a. Swerve off away from the road falling off the hill killing the owner
b. Apply as much brakes as possible trying to cause minimal damage to the child that may or may not kill the child

After math of the above situation is who is to take the responsibility? The owner? The child? The child's parents? The car manufacturer? How should the car take a decision? What's is rationale behind such decisions?

Until such delicate decisions are not being drilled to bottom, self driving cars adds another dimension of problems although they're evolved to solve one set of problems

[AdityaDeane]

Originally Posted by aargee

Consider a typical hypothetical situation that's very hard to gauge.

A car that's self driving on a mountainous road has it's owner sleeping in the rear. All of a sudden there's a child jumps on the road to pickup his/her doll/ball. Car makes a calculation that, it certainly cannot apply brakes in time from hitting the child. Now what should the car do?
a. Swerve off away from the road falling off the hill killing the owner
b. Apply as much brakes as possible trying to cause minimal damage to the child that may or may not kill the child

I saw a video of a Volvo Truck driver applying panic braking and stopping the truck from hitting 2 kids crossing the road, link to the video below:

https://youtu.be/n44L-SOI1I8

If an alert human driver can respond so quickly, I am sure that computer AI will be quicker to respond with calculations running at hundreds of times per second with cameras and sensors etc.

Especially to stop smaller vehicles like cars, with ABS now becoming standard in all cars sold in India. Yes the technology will take time to mature, and with driving conditions like in India, where you don't actually learn till you start driving in real traffic and not some closed off roads.

Hopefully one day all cars will get similar tech and we will just need to sit and relax and enjoy the scenery which we miss by concentrating more on the road and traffic ahead.

P.S. Other videos suggest that it was the Truck's Emergency Braking System, which seems capable enough here in the video!

[Iyencar]

Agree with Bhpians who say a driver should be present to override the autonomous functions. If this was Super Mario then driving in India is like directly playing the last level for the princess. Best to knock out a few coins and mushrooms in the land, then underground, then underwater individually before facing all of it and the dragon together.

[sramanat]

Originally Posted by GTO

Nice, but please don't run them on public roads. I don't even trust the autonomous technology of Tesla on USA roads with their awesome road discipline, so something like this on Indian roads (where IMHO autonomous will NEVER work) is a scary thought. As much as I'd hate one of these banging into my car, I shudder at the plight of more vulnerable bikers & pedestrians.

Like we have seen with EVs, there will be a lot of new startups trying to crack the self-driving code. The government should ban all of them from testing on public roads, at least until the technology is proven. Go test it on private property (lots available in India) or abroad (many States & Countries allow it). Then come back on Indian roads only once your product has matured.

I tend to agree with the sentiment though not on the specifics.
1. Autonomous driving as a technology is not that big a hurdle to cross technically. At least not as big a hurdle as it used to be 10 years back.
2. However, there is a serious lack of moral and ethics around how autonomous cars should behave when presented with a real world problems. MIT has a nice simulation where you can participate.
3. As with the wireless telecom revolution, there is a huge chance for India to skip a few rungs of development process with autonomous driving. What would have taken an endless infrastructure project mired in land acquisition deals in laying wires was replaced by an advanced wireless technology, thrusting India forward. It is common for urban, educated, well-to-do Indians these days to not have a landline. Driverless cars with the right moral programming can help bring order to the lawless Indian roads!
4. That said, I'd love to see an easy to follow, very high level guidance from the government laying down laws on how the software should behave... But I won't hold my breath.

[whitewing]

Originally Posted by GTO

Nice, but please don't run them on public roads....Then come back on Indian roads only once your product has matured.

Completely agree with this view.In the video they envisage a system where the vehicles are monitored remotely. This raises several questions on safety. For ex: Who ensures that n/w connectivity is not lost? What if there is a n/w lag at a critical moment? Would a driver be supervising one car at a time or would be expected to supervise multiple vehicles - what if multiple cars encounter a supervision needed moment simultaneously?

Originally Posted by aargee

....
Until such delicate decisions are not being drilled to bottom, self driving cars adds another dimension of problems although they're evolved to solve one set of problems

Reminds me of Asimov's laws

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

In the Indian context, if those rules were implemented, I suppose the roads would have driverless cars running the above rules in a loop.

I reckon that just like the EV evolution, autonomous vehicles too will eventually gain traction. But I don't see that happening any time soon in India. Especially, the models where it is driverless or remotely monitored.

[texens]

Originally Posted by aargee

Basically, it's not just the country & regulations that needs to be addressed, even the AI is still in its most primitive stage. Consider a typical hypothetical situation that's very hard to gauge.

A car that's self driving on a mountainous road has it's owner sleeping in the rear. All of a sudden there's a child jumps on the road to pickup his/her doll/ball. Car makes a calculation that, it certainly cannot apply brakes in time from hitting the child. Now what should the car do?
a. Swerve off away from the road falling off the hill killing the owner
b. Apply as much brakes as possible trying to cause minimal damage to the child that may or may not kill the child

This is an area of active study and discussions - there are multiple autonomous vehicles policy frameworks - national and international - that are working on answering this very question (and a few more). Here's an article which shows how the answer to this question will vary from one country to another, and from one culture to another - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07135-0

[raghukodali]

I will believe an autonomous vehicle (test or otherwise) if it can get out of the gate of RMZ eco world in Bellandur in Bangalore at pre covid peak time and merge into the ORR. The distance will be 50 meters and I am 100% sure that the current generation autonomous vehicles won't even move an inch with all their million decisions per minute (or second or whatever).

[chaudh2s]

It is just for situations like these, do we need authoritarian regimes who can take tough decisions, stop such stupidity. I mean why on earth do you want an autonomous driving vehicle? Just because you can think and you have brains to develop a technology doesn’t mean you keep on developing useless things and create useless demands on semiconductors and other associated things. Just look at mobile phones, what have human kind gained since its advent? We have hurt our eyes, neck, peace of mind, exposed ourselves to radiations, family time and what not. Am 200% sure people before mobile phone came led a happier successful life.
Now this autonomous driving crap, I mean if one doesn’t want to drive, they can take a bus, hire a cab, ask your wife or children to drive or do whatever, but why let computer take over our lives. Our life is anyways too much dependent on chemicals these days, now computer want to take over the rest of it, where is the natural human going to go.
Simplify your lives guys!

[patwardhan]

While this tech is ever evolving, I don't think it will have any takers in India. Most luxury cars these days have lane assist, but on our roads if there are no lane markings, it goes for a toss, isn't it?