What’s one way to prevent a traffic jam? Self-driving cars may have an answer:
Artificial intelligence–powered cars can put the brakes on stop-and-go traffic.
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Category: transportation – Page 459
Misalignment between our goals and the machine’s
Part of what humans value in AI-powered machines is their efficiency and effectiveness. But, if we aren’t clear with the goals we set for AI machines, it could be dangerous if a machine isn’t armed with the same goals we have. For example, a command to “Get me to the airport as quickly as possible” might have dire consequences. Without specifying that the rules of the road must be respected because we value human life, a machine could quite effectively accomplish its goal of getting you to the airport as quickly as possible and do literally what you asked, but leave behind a trail of accidents.
Discrimination.
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An uncrewed Russian cargo ship linked up with the International Space Station Sunday (Nov. 18) to deliver nearly 3 tons of supplies for the orbiting lab.
The resupply ship, called Progress 71, docked at the space station at 2:28 p.m. EST (1928 GMT) as both spacecraft sailed 252 miles (405 kilometers) over Algeria. Progress 71 launched into orbit Friday (Nov. 16) from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
“A textbook journey for the Progress,” NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said during live commentary. [The Space Station’s Robotic Cargo Ship Fleet in Pictures].
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NASA engineers are using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world to design rotary wing vehicles that combine both piloted and autonomous operations. Urban Air Mobility is a safe and efficient system that can transport a small number of passengers and cargo, without the need for long runways. Check it out: https://go.nasa.gov/2FvGPfH
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Richard Branson, the British billionaire who wants to transform air travel with supersonic jets, has put his sights on something decidedly more down to Earth: a passenger railroad.
Branson has agreed to make a small investment and lend the Virgin brand to Fortress Investment Group’s Florida railroad, the first privately-funded intercity passenger train to be built in the U.S. in more than a century.
The private-equity company’s Brightline, which currently operates high-speed service between Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, will rename itself Virgin Trains USA this month and use the brand and Virgin’s “marketing expertise” for existing and future developments, the company said Friday in a statement provided to Bloomberg News.
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Carbon fiber composites—lightweight and strong—are great structural materials for automobiles, aircraft and other transportation vehicles. They consist of a polymer matrix, such as epoxy, into which reinforcing carbon fibers have been embedded. Because of differences in the mechanical properties of these two materials, the fibers can detach from the matrix under excessive stresses or fatigue. That means damage in carbon fiber composite structures can remain hidden below the surface, undetectable by visual inspection, potentially leading to catastrophic failure.
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