As I prepared our swarm robots for a high school demo after a day of Special Ops testing in the hills, my confidence in our shared control system was shaken by an eerie detection—one that multiple robots saw, but no human could. What began as a technical mystery teasing at ghosts ended with a lesson in humility and fog, reminding me that the key to solving autonomy’s paradox isn’t eliminating humans—it’s embracing collaboration and the right metaphor for interaction.
Tag: Autonomous Driving
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The Robot and the White Lady of Ramona
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Are We Playing Chess or Dodgeball?
Despite massive investment and hype, scalable AI systems modeled on cloud-based optimization and data alone continue to hit real-world limits, especially in chaotic, unstructured environments more like dodgeball than chess. The key to unlocking robust, adaptive AI lies not in discarding human-crafted primitives but in embracing them—just as biology seeds learning with instinctual behaviors, robotics must begin with embodied, low-level intelligence that enables true situated learning and agile response.
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Autonomous Vehicles and the Imminent Death of Vision Zero
An exploration of how autonomy challenges the assumptions behind Vision Zero and what that means for safety policy.
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Rethinking Autonomy: The Power of swarm intelligence
The collapse of major self-driving ventures stems not from a lack of intelligence, but from a flawed, cloud-dependent model that ignored the chaos of real-world conditions. True progress requires shifting from centralized path-planning to swarm intelligence—a decentralized, adaptive approach that prioritizes flow over control.
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Pumping the Brakes on Fully Autonomous Driving
While current self-driving strategies focus on individual AI and centralized cloud control, true road safety and efficiency will come from swarm intelligence—vehicles synchronizing with one another through real-time, peer-to-peer communication and positioning. To achieve this, the industry must shift from ideological hype to measurable safety metrics, enabling collective flow over individual autonomy.
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Autonomy for Whom?
While billions have been spent advancing self-driving technology, many systems still depend heavily on off-board servers, raising concerns about autonomy, safety, and centralized control. True autonomy should prioritize on-board intelligence, peer-to-peer coordination, and measurable safety — keeping the human at the center, not sidelined by corporate infrastructure.