Car industry didn’t remain the same once Henry Ford, about a century ago, brought assembly line production to model T. Production soared, cost per unit reduced and car production system changed forever.
Self-driving car – presumably the most ambitious project of the tech world – spending more than billions of dollars per quarter to develop/drive, train/test & fine-tune the technology. Aspiration is to build car to drive itself, goal – to make driving accident free.
How we learn…How cars learn
We, the humans, sense through our sensory organs, process information through our nervous system & brain. With repetition, we create patterns of knowledge and experience and memory. In short, we learn. We relate new information, keep learning and master a skill.
Technology’s aspiration to mimic human learning led to building information processing & learning system in lines of human brain and nervous system – in the form of neural network. Sense organs of a human being have been replicated as sensors – radar, computer vision, GPS sensors, brain as machine learning algorithm and self-learning machine. Simultaneous localization and mapping algorithm (SLAM) and detection and tracking of other moving objects (DATMO) powers this car ‘brain’ – to recognize the context of driving.
When I learnt how to drive, it took about 60 kms for getting the feel of brake, clutch, gear and their relationship for driving, another 60-80 kms for getting confidence to drive (before becoming overconfident). Humans learn to operate the instruments of car while the self-driving car learns to operate instruments with every possible combination of road, weather, traffic, signal. In short, car’s ‘brain’ needs more data for being trained. Some estimates tell that a self-driving car will generate more than 4000 GB of data per day. Cars will drive people, data will drive cars.
What is going to happen
Robotic taxi will not happen overnight. From alerts and warning of dashboard, cars will evolve into assisted driving – if the car controls the speed, driver will control the steering; if the steering is automated, speed will be manual. As cars start taking more control, we will have an opportunity to take our hands and then eyes off the road. Finally we will be able to switch off ourselves completely from driving – the car will decide how to drive, which road to drive, at what speed to drive, where to stop and where not to stop.
The moment car takes over the driving from you, your hands and minds will be free – available for engagement with other channels. You mobile will tune to Google nearby or Facebook friends near you. In-car entertainment is going to be the next generation App store.
It is estimated that in US alone, 4-5 million people will lose driving related jobs. It remains to be seen how many app development jobs are created. Insurance cost will go down drastically (who will pay the insurance still remains an open question), transportation costs will be less. Futurists think that rolling living room (on car) will replace hotel stay. Working from home will be a lost opportunity to Google, Tesla & Uber.
Then and Now
Henry Ford’s assembly line brought down the manufacturing time of a car from 12 hours to 2 hours to produce 1000 Model T cars each day. Thus Ford’s 13,000 workforce built ~ 300,000 cars — more than his nearly 300 competitors in 1914. It disrupted the manufacturing process on the ground.
100 years after, the technology companies are trying to disrupt the same industry – from car manufacturing to car insurance, including transportation & logistics. Epicenter of this disruption is in the cloud (on the way to heaven!), the new ‘brain’ learning from data and being more connected. Connected car connects you, entertains you, creates new choices for you…controls what you do, see, think & enjoy…in short drives YOU. Not only driving the car…the car drives the biggest vehicle – ‘YOU’.
Software is eating and drinking the world and the world? Will be happy paying the rent for service…and be on wheels…sorry…off the wheels.