Connectivity East: The Elephant or The Tiger in India?

Here is a taste of my article on the future of the connected vehicle market and self-driving vehicles in India. You can find a taste of the article below and the full article at https://www.rtinsights.com/connectivity-east-the-elephant-or-the-tiger-in-india/.

While job losses from self-driving cars are a concern in India, its complex driving environment may have more to do with a slow rollout of driverless tech.

While India is the sixth largest car manufacturer in the world, a top-six car-buyer market globally, and is also a technology powerhouse, one can be forgiven for thinking driverless vehicles in India makes little economic sense. The Indian Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari declared that “We won’t allow driverless cars in India” because he believes they will take away jobs. The average pay of an Indian taxi driver is ₹14,267 ($208.87) per month and the light detection and ranging or LIDAR necessary for an autonomous automotive to work cost somewhere between $12,000-75,000.

A bigger obstacle to Indian automation is the Indian driving environment. Many Indian road signs are absent, falling off, or not visible, families are known to live almost on top of the highways, and there is no lane discipline. If we do not have the technology for cars to properly drive in Berlin or Boston within the next five years, how can it work in Bengaluru? As University of Michigan dean of engineering Alec Gallimore put it, the technology can work in India, but only as long as “we’re not copy-and-pasting from the West.” India, like major Asian economic rivals in the autonomous race, is making strides of its own.

Could the UK Benefit From Becoming AI’s Moral Center?

Now for something very different. I recently attended an event at the British Consulate in Boston regarding the British approach to artificial intelligence strategy and wrote up my analysis of it for Real-Time Insights. You can find a taste of the article below and the full article at https://www.rtinsights.com/could-the-uk-benefit-from-becoming-ais-moral-center/.

While countries are trying to come up with an AI strategy, not all can lead in all areas of this new tech. Could the UK try to become AI’s moral heart?

The British consulate in Boston recently invited me to attend an event to discuss their country’s approach to artificial intelligence (AI) strategy. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) wants to improve its business relationship with the United States by establishing a reputation in AI.

Britain is no longer the “Workshop of the World” of the early 1800s, when it manufactured goods that beat its competitors in terms of price, quantity, and quality. Now it wants to regain its position as a leader in technology. The UK aims to be the new world center of AI, but it has a long way to go.

Data Ownership in the Age of the Connected Vehicle

Here is a taste of my newest RTInsights article on connected vehicle data ownership. You can find the full article at https://www.rtinsights.com/data-ownership-in-the-age-of-the-connected-vehicle/.

The issue of data ownership in the coming generations of connected vehicles will be thorny. Owners, drivers, OEMs, insurers, and others may have claims.

Most people do not know what data reside and are generated by vehicles. In fact about  90% of Europeans think the drivers own the data in their vehicles and some American lawyers believe there are legal arguments in favor of having the vehicles’ owners keep the data held within their cars.

In the current landscape, most of the drivers’ vehicles’ data are owned by the car manufacturers (OEMs) in the United States and Europe, not the vehicles’ owners. People are becoming aware of the data issues involved in cases such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Tempe’s Self-Driving Accident: Should Performance Data Be Shared?

Here is a taste of my newest RTInsights article on self-driving vehicle testing in the aftermath of the Uber crash in Tempe and whether companies should share data to prevent such an incident from reoccurring. You can find the full article at https://www.rtinsights.com/tempes-self-driving-accident-should-performance-data-be-shared/.

The recent Uber self-driving vehicle accident that killed a woman in Arizona shows the technology may not be ready for prime time yet, but should all players in the market should be sharing use data?

There have been dozens of articles about who is to blame in the Uber crash involving a pedestrian walking her bicycle and an autonomous Uber car which had an emergency backup driver who would take over when the car made a mistake.

What went wrong? Did the program “see” the bicycle and assume the pedestrian was riding the bicycle more quickly than she was actually moving her bicycle? If the driver was paying more attention, would she have spotted the bicycle in time? While we should mourn the people lost due to immature technology, we should take comfort in that we have information and have the opportunity to add the information to vehicular programs so this will never happen again.