Bill Gates rides in unmanned cars in London: autonomous driving will change lives like computers

Author | Xiao Choi Edit | Juice

"That was fantastic!" This is Bill Gates' test ride on Wayve's driverless taxi.

Recently, Bill Gates was invited to test a driverless taxi built by British startup Wayve. The test ride carried Bill Gates, Wayve co-founder and CEO Alex Kendall and a safety driver.

The car circled around central London, passing through many complicated road conditions, and the safety driver had taken over the car on several occasions. However, Bill Gates said that it was a wonderful test ride experience.

The test ride obviously left a deep impression on Bill Gates, and after the test ride, Bill Gates wrote a blog detailing his views on self-driving technology.

He believes that self-driving cars will revolutionize transportation in the same way that personal computers have changed office work, and even directly declared: "I believe that in the next decade, self-driving cars will reach a turning point." ”

As one of the most influential figures in the technology industry, Bill Gates' every move can trigger heated discussions in the industry, and Bill Gates' high praise of the autonomous driving industry will also give a shot in the arm to the turbulent industry.

First, driving in central London Bill Gates said very well

On March 30, US time, Bill Gates posted a video of a test ride on Wayve's self-driving car on Twitter.

Screenshot of Bill Gates Twitter

It is understood that the car's self-driving technology is built by British startup Wayve, which is working with Microsoft to develop artificial intelligence-based self-driving software.

Wayve self-driving cars

During the test ride, Bill Gates has been sitting in the co-pilot's seat, paying attention to the performance of the car during the drive.

From the hotel, the safety officer activated the car's self-driving system, which Bill Gates joked would be the easiest job in the world.

During driving, the car is driven in an automatic driving state almost the entire time. Alex Kendal said that while other self-driving technologies are limited to specific mapped streets, Wayve's technology is more like a human driver, able to learn how to drive around a city and then apply that driving knowledge to new areas.

Central London is almost one of the most complicated areas, with narrow roads, numerous intersections, dense vehicles, and often a large number of pedestrians and bicycles.

The road meets a traffic light

However, the Wayve car handles the road conditions well, automatically slowing down when there is a bicycle ahead, and accelerating to overtake the bike when it is in a wide area.

The road meets the bike ahead

If there is a pedestrian ahead, the car will automatically slow down, and when it encounters a red light, it will stop and wait, even in the absence of a traffic light, once there is a pedestrian crossing the road ahead, the car will slow down or stop waiting.

Pedestrians crossing the road (no traffic lights are set)

In addition, they also encountered the situation of the other party's oncoming car turning around in the middle of the road, and the car automatically took measures to stop and wait, and then restart after the other party's vehicle completely turned around and left.

The road encounters a U-turn from the vehicle ahead

Alex Kendal, introducing his self-driving technology to Bill Gates, said that the technology's current algorithms can control the speed, steering, direction, braking and everything else related to driving, and its biggest advantage is that it can learn.

However, because Wayve's self-driving technology is still in the experimental stage, the relevant technology is not yet mature, and the safety officer has also taken over the control of the car many times during the test ride.

Second, Bill Gates blogs Autonomous driving will change the rules of the road

By testing Wayve self-driving cars, Bill Gates has a more tangible experience of self-driving technology, but more about the current development of self-driving technology and related problems and solutions that will arise in the future.

The day after Bill Gates released the test ride video, on March 31, US time, Bill Gates posted another blog post saying that self-driving cars will revolutionize transportation in the same way that personal computers transform office work.

Bill Gates wrote in his log: "I believe that within the next decade, self-driving cars will reach an inflection point. ”

Here are highlights from Bill Gates' blog:

1. Wayve uses deep learning to realize autonomous driving like a human driver.

Bill Gates explains that when you drive, you rely on the experience you've gained from every previous drive. That's why you know what to do before a stop sign, even if you've never seen it on this particular road before.

Wayve uses deep learning to achieve the same effect. Algorithms can learn from examples, experience gained from a large number of real driving and simulations, and then apply them to the interpretation of the surrounding environment and real-time responses.

In addition, Bill Gates shared the test ride experience of Wayve's self-driving car: "The self-driving car drove us around central London, which is one of the most challenging driving environments imaginable, and sitting in the car feels a little surreal because it avoids all traffic"

2. In the next decade, we will advance to Level 3 autonomous driving technology.

Based on the American Society of Engineers' classification system, Bill Gates believes that the self-driving industry is approaching a tipping point in self-driving technology, currently between L2 and L3 - that is, allowing the driver to take his hands off the wheel and let the system drive the car under certain circumstances.

Autonomous driving technology hierarchical

The first Level 3 autonomous vehicles have been approved for use in the United States, but only in Nevada, and require Level 3 autonomous driving mode in fine weather and speeds below 40 mph (about kilometers per hour).

Bill Gates said that the biggest advance in the self-driving industry right now is in sensors, which can scan the surrounding environment and tell the vehicle what needs to react, such as slowing down when a pedestrian crosses the road and stops.

Over the next decade, the self-driving industry will begin to see more vehicles crossing this threshold, and self-driving cars are rapidly reaching a point where almost all the required technology has already been invented.

The current focus of the autonomous driving industry should be on improving algorithms and improving engineering. Many automakers, such as General Motors, Honda and Tesla, are developing models with self-driving features. Some companies are focusing entirely on self-driving cars, and some of them are also pushing the limits of vehicles, such as robo-taxis. Other companies are developing components for autonomous driving functions that can be installed on existing vehicles, such as chips, sensors, and autonomous vehicle systems.

3. Passenger cars will finally apply Level 3 and above autonomous driving technology.

In Bill Gates' view, passenger cars may be the last type of vehicle to widely adopt Level 3 and above autonomous driving technology, while long-distance transport trucks may be the first, followed by logistics distribution.

In addition, self-driving cars are likely to eventually be used in taxis or rental cars, because rental companies lose a lot of money every year due to driver accidents, so they will be more eager to transition to self-driving car fleets, which will theoretically at least have fewer accidents.

As autonomous vehicles become more widespread, we also need to rethink changes in laws, auto insurance, road facilities, and more. For example, who is responsible for an accident in a self-driving car, whether it is the passengers, the car company, or the self-driving software company? As a result, governments need to enact new laws and regulations.

In addition, changes may also need to be made in the planning and construction of roads, and perhaps the government will need to set up "autonomous vehicles only" lanes and "human drivers only" lanes in the future.

Conclusion: The next decade is critical for autonomous driving

There is no doubt that autonomous driving technology is currently in a bottleneck period of development, and the time required from L2 to L3 will not be too long, but it will not be too short.

At present, almost all the existing autonomous driving technology is at the L2 level, and even if there is an iteration on the basis of the L2 level, most of them are named "L2+" or "L2++", and almost no car company or technology company dares to claim that its self-driving technology has reached the L3 level.

At the recent China Electric Vehicle 100 High-level Forum, Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon, said that L3 will be difficult to achieve real landing in the next decade. Bill Gates, on the other hand, said in his diary that in the next decade, we will move towards Level 3 autonomous driving technology.

We have no way or need to judge whether the two are right or wrong, and all this can only be left to the test of time. But there is no doubt that the next decade will be a very important period of innovation in autonomous driving technology.