During a recent trip in an autonomous vehicle (AV) around central London, Bill Gates is certain that autonomous vehicle are the way of the future. Gates detailed his excellent experience with British start-up Wayve’s autonomous vehicle in a blog post last week titled “Hands Off The Wheel: The Rules Of The Road Are About To Change.”
The self-described “car guy” predicted that machines will take over driving “sooner rather than later” while being accompanied by the company’s founder and CEO Alex Kendall and a safety operator.
The autonomous vehicle drove through the busy streets of London, which he called “one of the toughest driving settings,” calling the trip “memorable and spectacular.”
“I recently had the opportunity to test drive—or test ride, I guess—a vehicle made by the British company Wayve, which has a fairly novel approach. While a lot of autonomous vehicle can only navigate on streets that have been loaded into their system, the Wayve vehicle operates more like a person. It can drive anywhere a human can drive.”
The tech tycoon claims that Wayve is developing a cutting-edge approach to self-driving, a field that will “hit a tipping point” in 10 years. According to Gates, the advent of fully autonomous driving will be a game-changer on par with the development of computers.
He wrote, “I’ve always been a car guy. When I was younger, I used to love driving fast (sometimes too fast). Despite that, I’m excited for the day I get to hand over control of my car to a machine.”
“That day is coming sooner rather than later. We’ve made tremendous progress on autonomous vehicles, or autonomous vehicle, in recent years, and I believe we’ll reach a tipping point within the next decade. When it happens, autonomous vehicle will change transportation as dramatically as the PC changed office work. A lot of this development has been enabled by the progress made in artificial intelligence more broadly,” he said.
Gates also envisioned potential future changes to the “systems supporting driving.” He questioned if the government would need to pass new rules and regulations governing autonomous vehicles or who would be held accountable in the event that one of these vehicles is involved in an accident. The billionaire speculates that the introduction of autonomous vehicles may result in big changes to highways itself and wonders whether there will ever be “autonomous vehicle-only” lanes.
Explaining the growth trajectory of autonomous vehicles, the Microsoft founder wrote, “Autonomous vehicle are rapidly reaching the point where almost all of the technology required has been invented. Now, the focus is on refining algorithms and perfecting the engineering. There have been huge advances in recent years—especially in sensors, which scan the surrounding environment and tell the vehicle about things it needs to react to, like pedestrians crossing the street or another driver who swerves into your lane.”
Gates mentioned that Humanity has adapted to new modes of transportation before. “I believe we will do it again. For most of our existence, we relied on natural ways of getting around: We walked, or rode on horseback, or traveled in a boat pushed by wind. Then, in the 1700s, we entered the locomotion age when mobility was powered by steam engines and internal combustion. Now, we find ourselves in the early days of the autonomous age. It’s an exciting time, and I can’t wait to see what new possibilities it unlocks,” he added.
