*This article is reproduced from the autocarweekly public account.
Author: Ling Huchong
Here’s the story: Yesterday I had dinner with a brother who develops chips. After 10 years in his company, they finally listed on the GEM. According to the current stock price, when his stock unlocks, he will go from owning assets worth less than seven figures to assets worth over nine figures (“upgrading” from A7 to A8.9).
I asked him, “Is the power of money so strong that it makes you excited for a whole week?”
He cracked open a plump crayfish and said, “The power of money is not the only thing. Money comes and goes. I’m excited because someone has finally made progress on the evil steering wheel and pedals.”
As someone who works in the automotive reviews industry, I shivered at the thought of Baidu’s car robot. If I can’t experience a car with my hands and feet, what’s the point? Will I be unemployed soon?
As it turned out, his face was red and he was full of excitement after drinking a bottle of Suntory beer. With tears in his eyes, he exclaimed, “Finally, someone has realized that it’s time to tackle the greatest uncertainty of autonomous driving.”
I took a big gulp of Wang Laoji.
He didn’t notice my weird expression and said excitedly, “There have been some big things happening in the field of autonomous driving recently, haven’t there?”
I said, “Yes, that’s true. Autonomous driving technology is still growing, from the United States to China.”
He said, “Technology is progressing, but the promotion of it is a problem. Those of us who work on programming have no hope in it at all, because no matter how much we do, it’s meaningless. Even now, some algorithms are being forced to use brute force to do the cases in order to teach AI to drive.”
I said, “There’s no solution to this. Roads are constantly changing, and every road is different. You can’t expect a programmer who spends all their time sitting in front of a computer to understand everything. Driving requires both wisdom and reaction, and even courage. It’s not an exaggeration to say that to fully show off a male driver’s skill, you need to drive through a busy traffic jam and create your own path. I’m just an average driver who hasn’t had any points taken off my license in a year. Please call me Taiming Teng from Hongkou District.”
He said, “If we assume that all the drivers on the road are experienced, then would there still be traffic accidents?”
I thought about it for a bit and gave a definite answer. Even if all the drivers were experienced, there would still be accidents. After all, the more experienced a driver is, the more likely they are to choose the most suitable road and speed based on their experience, operation, and actual road conditions. Other drivers on the road might not be able to react in time.
He slammed the table, his eyes focused like black spots on the sun, and his strong body shook. He almost made the boss bow down to him. “Brother, is the crayfish not to your liking today?” He hesitated for a moment and then said to the boss, “Five more jin of thirteen spices, extra spicy!”
Then he took another sip of Suntory beer and said, “The problem of AI not being able to drive is right here!”Translate Chinese Markdown text into English Markdown text in a professional way, preserving HTML tags within Markdown, and outputting only the corrected and improved parts without explanations:
The biggest problem is that all of you “experienced drivers” have your own interpretation of traffic regulations, so every time AI hits the road, it encounters situations that it has never encountered before.
In fact, driving a car is simply getting from point A to point B while interacting with countless vehicles on the road in an orderly manner, and people are the biggest variable in this order!
Cutting in line, changing lanes illegally, and speeding – even you as an experienced driver would have to avoid a reckless tanker truck in the middle lane on the highway, wouldn’t you?
I shrugged helplessly. There’s nothing I can do. Even if I’m driving on the road, I can only control my own car, I can’t control others. I thought back to those frightening and angry moments in history.
Why don’t we eliminate the variable of the human driver from traffic? Let AI drive all vehicles according to a predetermined program, and the entire traffic flow will be in a state of absolute order because AI is guaranteed not to do anything outside of the established program. Currently, all programs are written based on traffic regulations. Of course, as technology advances, it ensures that AI can learn to drive on a road full of AI drivers, giving us an “accident-free” transportation system.
He said that this is the most amazing aspect of Baidu’s autonomous driving technology, or rather, Baidu’s car robots.
Since humans are a random number that cannot be controlled in a program, removing this random number is the same as removing a bug from a program. Henceforth, all data will be constant, definite, computable, and predictable, and wouldn’t we have won?
Sweating profusely, I don’t know if I’m shook by the prospect of losing my job or if it’s the spicy crayfish.
Robin was right – the future of intelligent cars should be robots with four wheels. But this also puts higher demands on Baidu’s autonomous driving technology. A vehicle with no steering wheel or pedals means that its driving is absolutely not subject to human will. So, if an accident did occur, the blame would not be placed on the driver for mishandling the vehicle. This is absolute confidence, and absolute determination.
Although different companies may have diverse approaches to technology and perception, all of their algorithms rely on standard traffic regulations, whether it’s Tesla, NIO, Great Wall, or Roewe.Do you know what the most thrilling part of the video is? In the demonstration section, not only do you have to obey traffic rules yourself, but you also have to deal with others’ violations. Do you know how much effort Baidu has put in to achieve this?
I said, “You already know this. Aren’t you a chip developer? Could you tell me the inside story?”
He reached out his hand and gestured with five fingers.
I asked, “What do you mean by that?”
He replied, “I don’t know. If I did, Baidu’s data security would be compromised, and that’s what they rely on to survive.”
But think about it, autonomous driving has about eight specific patent technology dimensions, including machine vision, planning control, driver assistance system, mobile computing, traffic warning, lidar, motor vehicles, and composite components. Baidu is only a world leader in the first two dimensions. It’s a long road to success, and Baidu is still seeking.
You should know that Baidu’s high-quality patents in the field of artificial intelligence in China are among the best in the industry. In 2021, Guidehouse ranked Baidu as a leader in autonomous driving. Baidu ranks first in China for patent applications for high-definition intelligent map technologies, second for intelligent video analysis technology supporting vision platforms, and first for AI algorithms and deep learning.
How many lines of code are there? This is how many seniors and juniors’ hairs have been lost, including mine. Wuuu.
He touched his thinning hair and became emotional, crying.
It’s not enough to rely solely on Baidu. But the strongest point of Baidu is that my autonomous driving system does not require human operation. Even if Baidu’s autonomous cars collide with Tesla, NIO, or Xpeng on the road, I believe that Baidu’s autonomous cars will win.
How to judge who wins or loses? It’s simple: traffic rules. Whoever can follow traffic rules to the greatest extent wins.
Baidu’s autonomous driving system has no human error. Thus, it can ensure compliance and prohibit actions within the scope of traffic rules. While others may have errors, as long as the algorithm does not fail, it’s likely that others will collide with Baidu, rather than Baidu colliding with others.
Can Baidu ensure 100% accuracy? It’s impossible; the technology isn’t there yet, but it will be achievable in the future.
At last year’s Baidu World Conference, the cloud driver had to take control frequently, and there were still some minor flaws in the technology. But look at this year; you can see that there is no active intervention. Of course, there is still a cloud driver monitoring the unmanned cars, but now one cloud driver can supervise multiple cars. With iterative technology updates, the demand and operation of the cloud driver will truly decrease, even to the point where it’s not necessary at all. That’s true L6 level.Now it’s only at L5 level, but it’s enough to enable the robot to ensure the commuting efficiency of this public transport tool based on sensors and voice control.
This car robot has automatic gull-wing doors for entry and exit, a fully glass roof, and a super large curved screen to project the outside scenery. After the passenger sets the destination, they can sit in the car and enjoy the scenery, play games, or simply sleep, and then the robot will automatically drive to the destination.
The most critical aspect is standardization. Have you seen a Tesla Model 3 hit another Tesla Model 3? No, right?
If you carefully examine Baidu’s technology, you will find that many of their patents are focused on automatic driving, electronic devices, computers, obstacles, smart transportation, deep learning, sensors, computer vision, lane markings, etc. Most of the technology is about teaching AI how to drive, and there are no shortcuts, only by code.
And do you know that Baidu has been planning this for a long time?
Baidu has been wanting to replace human drivers for a long time? I am shocked. Is there an undercover agent around me that wants to take away my job, and I am still applauding for it?
Yes. Many of Baidu’s patents are based on full-automatic driving of vehicles, or in other words, it’s like a transformer. Imagine Optimus Prime stopping at your doorstep, and suddenly a flowerpot falls from the top of the building, what would Optimus Prime do?
What would Optimus Prime do, take out his laser gun and shoot at the flowerpot? No, wait, why is Optimus Prime stopping outside my house? Is Megatron coming to steal the glasses left behind by my grandpa?
Don’t interrupt me. I’m talking about the hypothetical situation.
If a flowerpot falls from a building and is about to hit Optimus Prime, then Optimus Prime will definitely avoid it himself, right?
I was puzzled for a moment, but also thought that Optimus Prime, as the leader of Cybertron, would not stupidly let a flowerpot hit his head.
If the Autobots of Cybertron know how to avoid flowerpots, why can’t our Earth-born car robots avoid them? Baidu has an invention patent called “a high-altitude falling object protection method and device” (publication number CN106184093A), which can identify and judge the danger level and take automatic evasive action in the event of a high-altitude falling object. If a flowerpot falls, the Baidu car robot can instantly start the engine to move and avoid the flowerpot. If it can’t be avoided, it can inflate the roof airbag to prevent the skylight from being smashed.# You say it’s amazing, it’s Baidu’s plan, as well as our programmers’ plan.
What plan? To be honest, I’m confused and haven’t recovered yet. Are you programmers going to eliminate humanity and create a virtual world with only code, like in The Matrix, using brain-machine interfaces to keep all humans captive?
No, no, no, your vision is too limited. Do you remember the game we played before, called “Frostpunk”?
I’m shocked that you like it too? I always thought you programmers only liked to play I society’s girl games.
He blushes, “Of course, I have to play I society’s games, but sometimes I need to take a break with simpler games.”
Do you remember when the blizzard came in the game, and the temperature dropped dramatically? If we didn’t dig coal, my villagers would have frozen to death, so I had them work overtime to dig more coal and use more heaters outside the eight-hour workday. When the people rebelled, it was unbelievable! They were not happy, even though they were going to freeze to death without the coal. The people wouldn’t work extra hours!
Later, I developed a winning strategy, which was to produce robots as quickly as possible. I let the robots dig coal, chop wood, and collect steel in the blizzard. Humans, on the other hand, simply lay down to warm themselves. With robots all over the map, we easily weathered the coldest blizzards and kept the people happy.
Wow, is it possible to do that? I recall the days and nights of struggling with the people, wanting them to live, but they would rather freeze to death in the winter for some strange personal reasons. It makes me more and more angry as I play.
As Liu Cixin said, “Efficiency improvements, in turn, promote technological explosions, making scenes in science fiction novels become reality one by one.” According to his understanding, in the future, humans will no longer need to do basic work: screwing screws, cleaning sewers, cooking, and even driving, building houses, writing programs, and coding. Robots can handle all this. Humans only need to use their imaginations to innovate, to create, to explore, and to do more meaningful things.
Like, conquering the stars and the seas? I’m also immersed in fantasy.
No, inventing recipes! Humans can unleash their creativity, come up with more and better ways to cook crayfish, and then let the robots implement them.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.