CURMUDGUCATION: AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)

CURMUDGUCATION: AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)

AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)

From Jalopnik, we get this report from the world of self-driving trucks. Mark it the gazillionth cautionary tale for folks who believe that AI will be able to take over critical human functions any time soon.

The article takes a look at Starsky Robotics, a company that was in the business of producing unmanned semis for public highways. Now it's just in the business of shutting down. The co-founder, Stefan Seitz-Axmacher gave an interview to Automotive News that's behind a paywall but Jalponik shares some of the highlights.

Not as smart as it looks.

Starsky is closing up shop because they cant get backers, and they lost their backers because they insisted on putting an emphasis on safety rather than cool new features

But a problem emerged: that safety focus didn’t excite investors. Venture capitalists, Seltz-Axmacher said, had trouble grasping why the company expended massive resources preparing, validating and vetting his system, then preparing a backup system, before the initial unmanned test run. That work essentially didn’t matter when he went in search of more funding.

“There’s not a lot of Silicon Valley companies that have shipped safety-critical products,” he said. “They measured progress on interesting features.”

Seitz-Axmacher also notes that faith in self-driving vehicles is waning in the venture capitalist CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: AI Is Not Going To Drive Trucks (Or Your Classroom)