Where are we actually heading to??

Sophia is a humanoid robot developed by Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics. It has been designed to respond to questions, and has been interviewed around the world. In October 2017, the robot became a Saudi Arabian citizen, the first robot to receive citizenship of any country. (Source: Wikipedia)

Today morning, I was reading an article on artificial intelligence (AI) and searched in the internet for the latest technologies related to the field. I saw a Youtube video in which, Sophia was placed (? )'Sophia is an official citizen of Saudi') in an autonomous AUDI car for a test ride. On highway, the driver turned on the autopilot mode and started speaking to Sophia.

The discussion they had, diverted my thoughts to a similar topic related to self driving cars. Few months back, Thinture team demonstrated the latest version of our speed limiter device, the multiple speed limiter, an automatic vehicle speed control system, which can intelligently recognise the speed limit of a given area. Our system impressed the guy who came to test it. Driving through the busy roads, he got the confidence that he is not crossing the road speed limits and is not attracting any speeding fines.

We had a discussion about the latest developments in the field of speed limitation and then reached the topic of Autonomous vehicles. He, working as a road safety consultant, is basically from Europe and has participated in various road safety programs across the globe.

I told him that, our technology is advanced, but is nothing compared to the ongoing advancements in the field of road safety, mainly on autonomous vehicles. The reply I got from him was really informative and confusing. Even though technology is fast advancing, Autonomous car technology will take more time to be a part of our lives. We travel in metro trains and other driverless transit systems where there is a fixed path with minimum obstacles. But when it comes to a driverless car, we, humans are afraid to travel in a vehicle where there is no driver to handle unexpected situations.

I use to hit the imaginary brake pedal while sitting in the passenger seat, while somebody else is driving, and I suddenly see an obstacle in the front. It happens to most of us. We trust our reflex, not others. A similar situation is happening with self driven cars also. It may take years for us to completely trust these machines.

The world is changing very fast and artificial intelligence is now a part of our life, we like it or not. Starts from the search suggestions and automatic advertisements, we are surrounded by AI. When we add our location to google maps, the software ask more questions like, whether the place has a parking space, whether it has a road access, or even that road is narrow or wide. That way, the system is learning day by day. There is no limit for its memory and even the processing speed to recollect the information stored. Just imagine the technology difference in the Charles Babbage system and today's cloud based systems !!

Sophia is a game changer. Born(?) in 2015, Sophia has learned a lot by now. Currently the thought process we have, is formulated through the circumstances we came through, as a child. Now, The new generation kids are much familiar with new technology, Robots, Humanoids and Artificial intelligence. There is high chance that, they trust technology than us and can sit relaxed in an autonomous car.

Till that time, the existing technologies have a breathing space..