Godfather of Self-Driving Cars Says the Tech Is Going Nowhere

There is a lot of enthusiasm over self- driving cars. Since the first demos, the technology just isn't there yet.

Anthony Levandowski, a self-driving pioneer, said in a new interview that it would be hard to find another industry that invests so much in R&D.

Levandowski is acknowledged by his peers as one of the key engineers that started the industry. He has become persona non grata off the back of a lawsuit that almost ended his career.

He is not incorrect. Despite eye-watering sums spent on development over the past decade, the internet is still horrified by footage of the tech going haywire, messing up, or facing yet another investigation from the government.

There is a problem. According to Levandowski, the industry is just a bunch of tech demos.

He said it's an illusion.

You can see what the creators want you to see in demos, but they can control what you don't see. To make it seem high tech, monitors will show what the cars register in its camera, flashing with symbols and polygons to show that the vehicle is aware of it's surroundings.

The fearsome left turn, or an "unprotected left turn" as the industry likes to insist, will not be shown in the demos. The move of cutting left across traffic when there is no light has proved to be difficult for artificial intelligence drivers.

In September, Cruise, a subsidiary of General GM, recalled and updated the software of all of its self-driving cars after one of them couldn't pull off a left turn and crashed, injuring two.

You can't say that with an artificial intelligence that has to drive a two ton vehicle because it won't do that in the future Humans who have grown up in the physical world with all of its structure and chaos are used to small changes in the environment. We instinctively know whether to acknowledge or ignore them most of the time.

A small change could be catastrophic to an artificial intelligence. How is it supposed to know what to do when it doesn't understand everything it's looking at? How will it handle when there are animals at the edge of the road, or when birds are flying in the air?

We are driving around, testing technology and creating additional risks, without actually delivering anything of value. In the interview, Levandowski asked

Levandowski would be the one to have a gripe against the self-driving-car-o-osphere.

He's been credited with kick-starting the industry with his demonstration of a self-driving car delivering a pizza in San Francisco with a police escort. The stunt demonstrated to the business world that the technology wasn't a pipe dream and eventually led to Levandowski co-founding the self-driving program.

Things got dicey when Levandowski left the company. Levandowski was accused of stealing trade secrets to use in the program of the ride hailing company. He was dumped by his new employers, forced into bankruptcy, and pardoned by Donald Trump in order to escape federal prison.

He is not the only one with his thoughts.

George Hotz is the founder of the open source assisted driving company Comma.ai. Billions of dollars have been wasted.

The entire industry depends on the idea that self-driving cars will make our roads safer and that humans are bad drivers. Humans are good drivers, as Hotz points out.

There are a lot of stories of self-driving cars getting into accidents or messing with traffic. There are no clear signs that self-driving will be safe.

We might have to take driving tests for self-driving cars until we get to that point.

Even after a billion dollars, self-driving cars are not going anywhere.

There is more on self- driving.