[extropy-chat] Pentagon-Sponsored Robot Race Ends As All EntriesBreak Down

[Spike]

> 
> --- Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> >
> http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/darpa_race_
040313.html
> 
> Coverup?  What if they succeeded and the Pentagon doesn't want us to
> know?:)


OK I just returned from the robot races in Nevada.  They
were a bust, but we all learned a great deal.  After the
less than impressive progress of the vehicles, we hung
around and talked to the teams as they came in on trucks
to the finish area in Primm Nevada.

When you are driving somewhere, what is your mind doing?
You may not be aware of the thoughts regarding your
driving, but clearly there is a great deal of processing
going on.  So what is your mind's driving related top
priority?  

I would argue that your mind's top driving-related
priority is not guiding the car to your destination.
That is priority number four.  Priority one is avoiding
the smiting pedestrians.  Priority two is avoiding smiting
solid objects.  Priority three is keeping one's Detroit 
upon the pavement, the black part, not the lighter colored
concrete that contains the afore-mentioned pedestrians
and solid objects.  Priority four is navigating
toward your destination.  I *hope* your brain's priority
is in that order.

In the next few weeks I hope to organize a team to enter
the (probably) 2006 DARPA challenge.  Your assignment,
if you wish to contribute ideas, is to think about
what your brain is doing when you drive.  I leave
you with this one observation:

The DARPA Grand Challenge course had many mechanically
sophisticated entries, none of which succeeded, yet the
course was run successfully by eight vehicles, all with
human drivers, all mass produced.  They were ordinary
unmodified Dodge pickup trucks, which were to be used
as chase vehicles carrying DoD officials holding kill 
switches to stop wayward robots.  

This is a huge clue: the winning vehicle need not be 
mechanically sophisticated.  The simplest quarter-ton 
pickup can easily go faster than state-of-the-art driving 
software can guide a vehicle.  We saw all sorts of sophisticated
desert racing gear, nearly all of it unnecessary and undesireable.

I will propose a pickup truck with a small sensor package
consisting of GPS, radar or lidar, sonar, compass and clock.
Sufficiently sophisticated software can figure out what
to do with inputs from those instruments only.

spike