It is easy to get lost in what we are involved in when we are in the middle of it. There is a major shift taking place with a great deal of experimentation occurring within the realm of blockchain. Often, it is easy to miss the bigger picture when we are focused upon what is in front of us. Taking a step back often is helpful.
We see a lot of development in this industry. It is easy to get caught up with what the likes of Larimer or Buterin are doing. Certainly, it is safe to say they are big names in this realm. Yet, when you look at it from the scope of the entirety, they are small fish. There are many players, corporations, that dwarf those who are in this industry.
This is the level that we see a great deal of experimentation taking place.
I maintained that over the next decade. much of what migrates to blockchain will end up autonomous. Most transactions will be done by computers. People will not be interacting but, rather, machines. The Internet of Things is starting to be constructed.
Blockchain is going to be a vital piece of this. For years, I thought it the ideal coupling with autonomous vehicles. Robotaxis and the associated services are going to take over the transportation industry. Blockchain is going to be required to fulfill this.
The present tendency for the mega-corporations is to build their own stuff. Recently, we are starting to see some migrate away from that. Bosch is one company that is opting for the later. It is looking to tie autonomous vehicles to the blockchain
Bosch's project centers around using blockchain for electric vehicle charging. They are not focusing upon full-autonomy at this point yet that would not be a difficult step. Their plan is to create individualized charging plans based upon a variety of factors.
According to the CEO:
“In the future, things will not only be communicatively networked based but will also cultivate business relationships with one another.”
The idea is that a driver will pull into a charging garage which will be accessed by the vehicle communicating with the garage. All the information will be provided so the driver just pulls in. After the charge is complete, the driver pulls out with the transaction settled by the car with the garage.
Bosch's idea is that payments are made in ETH removing the need for fiat. All communication is machine-to-machine creating a frictionless situation.
This will also work for entertainment and other services. Having the vehicle interact with the blockchain allows for direct wallet-to-wallet payments. All settlements can be handled without human interaction.
Of course, this takes on added meaning when you consider autonomous vehicles. At that point, machine-to-machine communication is vital since there is no human driver. Payments for services render to that autonomous vehicle needs to occur. There is no way to swipe a Visa card under this scenario.
As we found out yesterday from the news about @cacheverse, whatever can be done on Ethereum can most likely also be duplicated on Steem. How does it sound having autonomous car applications on the blockchain?
Do you think it impossible? Is is actually a closer reality than most of us known.
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Picture from article linked.
Interesting thought train, but it won't work. :-p
Autonomous vehicles are sooo stupid right now, they do not know what to do when they are approaching a stalled vehicle. Further, they ignore bikes.
(this means, i will never get in such a vehicle)
Autonomous vehicles are a solution for a problem that is about to disappear.
The same with electric cars.
Now, blockchains being the big slow databases they are, are no good for inter-car communication. But, yes, they are good for exchanging money. >_>
So, to me, this whole post was mostly hype for something that was wishful thinking. Fortunately, better things are coming and will just surpass these ideas with much more grace.
You have sparked my curiosity. What is the problem that autonomous vehicles solve today that is going away? And with electric cars?
My desire for an autonomous car comes from the fact that driving is a waste of my time. I would love if the car could drive itself and I could do other things. In fact, I could sleep while it drives me to the beach. I could wake up, enjoy the beach, and sleep on the way home. Efficient.
Also, blockchains don’t have to be slow. Steem has 3 second transaction times. That’s pretty fast to me. Having autonomous cars come to a consensus before manuvering could be a way for car to car communication. I am in no way an expect on the subject.
I agree this seems like a ways off, but I have said that before and been wrong.
I too am totally curious about the problem with transport that's about to disappear...
The comment above yours is not correct. I think Builder is talking about the Waymo cars with Lidar, which as a radar like system do struggle with particular scenarios... but the Tesla system for their autonomous cars is a neural network, which means that they are constantly learning. Every edge-case that a Tesla encounters updates every other Tesla... and with 8-12 cameras, and now a dedicated Autonomous Driving microchip these cars will literally be 1000 times more safe than a human driver with a number of redundancies.
Obviously it's not perfect, there was a fatal accidental last week... but every day it'll get better... and the more Tesla cars on the road, the more edge-cases that'll be included. Honestly, I think within 2-3 years we won't even need to touch the steering wheel.
As for blockchains, obviously the tech is going to get dramatically better... there are so many people working so hard in this industry. I'm sure in 3 years we won't believe we put up with 3 second slow blockchains... so barbaric!
Well, given that the best self driving programs still IGNORE bikes... we have a long way to go.
And no, approximated neural-nets do not work that way. They do not get better and better. There are only so many links. So, basically, they get better at 90% of the stuff. And they get worse at 10% of the stuff.
Accidents are caused by that 10% of the stuff.
We shouldn't accept those 3 second block-chains.
So many corners are cut getting consensus down to 3 seconds.
Even Satoshi told Dan that he was wrong in doing it this way.
However, i am sure that internet speeds will greatly improve, and so we may see faster block-chain times.
But! They are still slow compared to CPU times.
Always will be, always have to be. Consensus takes time.
Wait... do you have any reputable sources that the Tesla autopilot ignores bikes? Are you talking about bicycles or motorbikes splitting lanes?
The Tesla neural net basically records any instance where a person takes the car out of autopilot, and sends that back to Tesla once they're back in wifi distance. That record is flagged, investigated and added to the autopilot code. Autopilot code is then sent as an over-the-air software update. Every Tesla made these days already has the autopilot hardware, even if the owners didn't pay for autopilot. Apparently by the end of this year they'll be ready for complete self-driving... from that point it'll just be regulatory hurdles.
Also, any source on Satoshi telling Dan he's wrong? I'd love to read that.
Yes, i have a reputable source, but it cannot be shared with you. ... so of course its not reputable.
What you said the "Tesla neural net" does , a neural net does not do.
A neural net is a decision making process that takes several variables and maps them onto an output. One of the most common uses is computer recognition. (like facial recognition)
It does not send things back, or flag things.
Further, if there is not an output that says "drunk driver heading straight towards us" then it will NEVER come up with a correct way of handling a drunk driver driving on the wrong side of the freeway.
No matter how many simulations you train the neural net with, it will never come up with that solution if it doesn't exist as a possible output.
And, like the Tesla engineers said about the accident, we did not program in the possibility of a stalled car.
Further, there are many incidences that the computer will do the exact wrong thing, whereas a human will almost always do the correct thing. These exceptions are hard to handle in a program that needs to run in real time.
All Satoshi typed was, "If you don't understand this, i don't have time to teach you."
Ah... sorry for the confusion... the Tesla neural net more describes the process of learning and improvement... not the actual Autopilot itself.
The Autopilot can react way faster than a human, it has two chips that need to agree with a course of action before that action is taken... which happens way quicker than a human can, particularly a distracted human.
Waymo is training their Autopilot with simulations, but Tesla is taking the data from real world drivers and the situations they face and improving their Autopilot with that data. The more Teslas out on the road, the more miles they do, the safer those cars become.
As Teslas encounter drunk drivers coming straight for them, the actions of the human will be sent back via the neural net, Tesla engineers will update the code with the correct course of action, the new code will be sent out to all Teslas to be updated when they're next in wifi range.
The microchips are way faster than people, are always improving and have 8-12 cameras around the car, whereas people only have 2 eyes. You having an auto accident does not make me a better driver... but for the Tesla autopilot, you having an accident does make my car a better driver.
As a biker, I can tell you that drivers are getting so much worse. The amount of people looking at their phones while they're on the freeway is ridiculous. Get these idiots away from the wheel and I'll be a lot safer. I really do think that within a decade we'll start to see laws banning humans from driving.
When I bought my car 4 years ago I told the saleman that this will be the last time I buy a car and manually drive off the lot. He looked at me like I was crazy. I still think I will be right.
I really like those odds. Unless something unusual happens to your car in the next year or two, I think you'll be bang on the money.
Just don’t be in heavy traffic when a Hard Fork takes effect. 😅
Speaking of a (hard) fork in the road.
The muppets did it best