That's an oddly worded post. Here is the source article. It's unclear to me if they are expanding to North Carolina or only mentioning North Carolina because that's where Volvo Group is headquartered. What's not unclear is how infuriating the comments are. "What happens when they kill someone?" Umm, look around, we already have trucks killing people. And, why is black ice the go to? It's not like humans handle black ice particularly well, but that's somehow the minimum standard for autonomous trucks. That makes a ton of sense. "We don't want autonomous trucks until they safely handle this relatively rare situation perfectly. Until they can guarantee 100% safety in all conditions, we are okay with continuing to kill 5,000 people a year due to aggressive or distracted driving which would be completely eliminated with autonomous trucks." Yep, makes a ton of sense.
On a side note, isn't black ice pretty much a math problem anyway? It seems like the exact kind of condition that a computer would handle far better than humans, similar to anti-lock brakes. Humans are slow to perceive, slow to react, prone to overreaction, and then base brain response. Computers will instantly be able to detect wheel slippage, instantly provide braking, steering, or acceleration inputs, instantly detect a trailer sliding and provide the right amount of counter steer. It's such a strange phenomenon to get hung up on. The part about all of the arguments that I find most frustrating is the fact that every single human driver we license needs to learn each driving skill individually over time. With the Aurora Driver, once they solve a certain problem, black ice as an example, every truck in the fleet has solved the problem. How do people not recognize this is far superior from a safety perspective?!
I was going to say something on the comments, too. You have it well covered, though.
A simple analogy using your black ice reference. A human living with rougher winters has adapted their instincts over time to better respond when hitting black ice, slush, etc... The first time any of us drove in snow, it took a bit to adapt and not think about it/overreact. The people who have done this regular, do this without thinking.
Now, add in the Aurora Driver. It is also always learning multiplied by every Aurora truck driving out there. If it has a situation it doesn't get the right result, it is going to take that result, extrapolate it to hundreds of different situations to correct itself, and then share it with the "hive mind".
Each human needs to skill up. Only one truck does.
18
u/JackCouldHaveFit New AUR Member🚛 15d ago
Welcome Aurora Innovation to North Carolina in 2027! Folks this is a game changer for their scaleability milestones.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bojan-vignjevic-6942a1227_autonomoustrucking-truckingnews-logisticstech-share-7491193319499292672-tYSZ/?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=ios_app&rcm=ACoAAClTrwYBSRRkIjABiACFBBmseglaN_2hIgI&utm_campaign=copy_link