Summary: This post talks about some implications of the Tesla autopilot crash, claims that some autonomous vehicle fatalities are unavoidable, and suggests some ways to minimize them. By now you have probably heard about the Tesla fatal autopilot accident, causing the tragic death of a Tesla enthusiast. There is a lot of discussion about what … More The Tesla crash, Tsunamis and spec errors
Whatever you think of my Stuttgart symposium trip report, at least I made the effort to attend it and report back. In this post I sink even lower, reporting from a conference I did not attend – the ICRA workshop on verification of autonomous systems. I did, however, watch the full 4.5 hour video (warning: … More The ICRA 2016 verification workshop
Summary: This post discusses some recent articles about automation and unemployment, and my reactions to them. Following my post about automation and unemployment, I got several comments saying I was too optimistic, and (fewer) saying all this would never happen. I am still trying to “get the future right” (I know this is really impossible). … More Misc stuff: Automation and unemployment
Summary: This trip report describes my impressions from the Second Autonomous Vehicles Test & Design Symposium in Stuttgart. Short version: The design side is moving fast. The verification side has improved, but has a long way to go. Note: In my last post I talked about what automation will do to this planet over the … More Finding bugs in autonomous vehicles: My impressions from the second Stuttgart symposium
Summary: This post takes a (speculative) look at the general implications of automation over the next 20 years: Employment declines. Democracy does not fold. Universal Basic Income becomes common. Education improves. New-age stuff grows. Quality-of-life inequality grows or shrinks, depending on how you look. And so on. A follow-up post will discuss the verification implications. Note: Title changed … More Automation and unemployment are coming, but I guess we’ll manage
Summary: This post discusses the (possible) rise of mostly-autonomous systems, i.e. systems which are normally autonomous, but still have “operators standing by” for the infrequent-but-crucial moments when they are needed. I’ll discuss this trend, its implications and startup opportunities, and then turn to my favorite topic – the verification implications of all that. Jobs of … More The rise of mostly-autonomous systems
I have been interacting with a bunch of robotics people lately, so as to learn what’s going on there regarding verification. This post is a (somewhat disorganized) summary of what I learned. I did this detective work on your behalf, gentle reader, by: Talking to a bunch of robotics-related academics here in Israel Going to … More Impressions from the robotics world
Some of you may be wondering about this extended silence (almost two months!). The obvious suggestions (that I entered a monastery, or that I went for an extended vacation in downtown Pyongyang) are all wrong. Nope, nothing as relaxing as that. I have been spec’ing and programming like there is no tomorrow. And it is … More What I have been doing lately
I have been busy lately looking at autonomous robots verification (e.g. I spent most of this week in Bristol discussing that – expect a trip report soon). And while my back was turned it seems AVs have been steadily progressing. Lots of actions in AVs The Economist had a good summary last week: It talks … More Meanwhile, on the Autonomous Vehicles front
Summary: This post talks about the “bigger picture” of autonomous robot verification (beyond basic CDV stuff). It mainly discusses the challenges, not the solutions. I am in the process of creating a minimal CDV-based verification framework for autonomous robots. This framework will simply do the usual CDV stuff (constraint-based generation, checking, coverage etc.) with minimal … More The bigger picture of verifying autonomous robots