Re: DARPA Grand Challenge



Brian Dean wrote:

> Would I do it again? Not a competition exactly like that, but maybe
> something similar in that it is in a field that is of interest to me
> and the nature of the event is interesting itself. The GC was
> interesting in part because it was so crazy to think anyone could
> create a fully autonomous ground vehicle that could successfully
> navigate 140 miles through an unknown rugged off-road region at useful
> speeds. That had never been done before, which was part of its appeal
> to me.

I think this characterization is a little misleading, considering
the precisely specified GPS course laid out. GPS was really the
sine qua non of the whole venture.

This is not to belittle the achievement, but I think some of the
exultations of success ( which attracted my attention ) were
overblown. This was being touted as an AI breakthrough, but consider
this from the "The Tartan" on the CMU "Red Team(s)" :

While there is an extensive amount of attention to hardware,
?[the] most powerful technology is preplanning the curves in
the hours or so before the race when the route is revealed,?
Whittaker said. ?We compute the terrain and the details of
where we?re going to drive and how fast we?re going to drive,
and that is definitely the thinking part of the race.

"definitely the thinking part of the race ..." Compare and contrast
the humble bee, plunging into the UNKNOWN, sans GPS, sans LIDAR, with
only its vision and its ever so tiny brain to rely upon.

Some say that unto bees a share is given
Of the Divine Intelligence ...

- Virgil
Lew Mammel, Jr.
.

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