In a recent study, Stanford scientists were able to transfer electricity wirelessly to a moving lightbulb. The technology they developed help overcome the limited driving range of electric cars, currently one of their biggest drawbacks.
If electric cars could recharge while driving down a highway, it would virtually eliminate concerns about their range and lower their cost, perhaps making electricity the standard fuel for vehicles.
Self Driving Cars and Ethics. It’s a topic that has been debated in blogs, op-eds, academic research papers, and youtube videos. Everyone wants to know, if a self-driving car has to choose between sacrificing its occupant, or terminating a car full of nobel prize winners, who will it pick? Will it be programmed to sacrifice for the greater good, or protect itself — and its occupants — at all costs? But in the swirl of hypothetical discussion around jaywalking Grandmas, buses full of school-children, Kantian Ethics and cost-maps, one crucial question is being forgotten:
What about the Squirrels?
What is your take on the ethics of driverless vehicles? Should programmers attempt to give vehicles the ability to weigh moral problems, or just vehicles only have the aim of self-preservation?
Posted in robotics/AI, transportation
In the course of Assured Autonomy program, researchers will aim to develop tools that provide foundational evidence that a system can satisfy explicitly stated functional and safety goals, resulting in a measure of assurance that can also evolve with the system.
Learn more about the Assured Autonomy program: http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2017-08-16
