1. Session 5: Autonomous Machines
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence

2. Sebastian Thrun
What AI is — and isn't (24 min Ted Talk) Sebastian Thrun (born May 14, 1967) is an innovator, entrepreneur educator, and computer scientist from Germany. He is CEO of the Kitty Hawk Corporation, chairman and co-founder of Udacity. Before that, he was a Google VP and Fellow, a Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, and before that at Carnegie Mellon University. (Wikipedia)
This is a wide-ranging interview that touches on most of the issues raised in this course including autonomous cars.
What are some of the human activities Thrun considers to be routinizable?
Does Thrun advocate man computer symbiosis?
How does Thrun use crowd-sourcing?
What is his approach to programming autonomous cars?
Is Thrun concerned about computer consciousness?
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

3. Self-Driving Cars
Today - Cruise control, lane-changing warning signals, automatic breaking
Goal – Autonomous operation, no driver needed
Accidents – 5 million each year in U.S. 35,000 deaths, % driver error.
Accidents cost $230 billion each year.
Case for autonomous cars :
Reduce accidents
Use roads more efficiently
Allow lower cost taxi/ride services
Enable seniors, children and the disabled to travel independently

4. Current Status of Self-Driving Cars
How Driverless Cars See the World Around Them NYTimes Mar 19, 2018
Waymo (Google) - Waymo Is Millions Of Miles Ahead In Robot Car Tests; (Forbes Mar 2, 2018)
Uber - Uber’s Self-Driving Cars Were Struggling Before Arizona Crash NYTimes Mar 23, 2018
GM Will Launch a Self-Driving Car Without a Steering Wheel in (Wired Jan 12, 2018)
The Races That Jump-Started the Self-Driving Car | WIRED (15 mins /\)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

5. Should Cars be Completely Autonomous ?
GM is dropping the steering wheel in autonomous cars - CBS News (3 mins)
The Chevy Bolt-based Cruise EV has no steering wheel, pedals or gear selector. (GM)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018
David Mindell’s “Our Robots, Ourselves: Robotics and the Myths of Autonomy”. Mindell examines the 2009 crash of AirFrance flight 447 concluding that the pilots were not able to transition into navigating the plane when the autopilot signaled a warning.

6. Ethics of Autonomous Cars
Human drivers constantly make decisions
Changing lanes
Avoiding obstacles
Slowing to allow entering traffic
Extreme case – Hit the running child or veer and go over the cliff
Autonomous cars make these decisions automatically following an algorithm based on:
Heuristics – Rules of thumb
Preferences (set by ???)
Experience (from collected data)
Stanford researchers discuss the ethics of autonomous vehicles (2 mins /\)

7. The Trolley Problem The Messy Ethics of Self Driving Cars (6 mins /\)
The Trolley Problem (2 mins)
The Messy Ethics of Self Driving Cars (6 mins /\)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

8. Autonomous Trucks
Self-Driving Trucks Will Kill Jobs, But Make Roads Safer | WIRED (7 mins)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

9. Autonomous Aircraft Cora Launch Video (3 mins /\)
Our story starts with a group of dreamers from California with a big idea. To build the aircraft the world has been fantasizing about since Wilber and Orville––Marty’s Delorean, the Jetson’s Hovercar––an aircraft so personal it could weave the freedom of flight into our daily lives.
(excerpt from a KittyHawk news release, Mar 12, 2018)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018
Cora, a self-flying electric air taxi built in New Zealand by Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet and cofounder of Google

10. Autonomous Weapons
AI Researchers Create Video to Call for Autonomous Weapons Ban at UN (8 mins – Fiction)
Don’t fear the robopocalypse: Autonomous weapons expert Paul Scharre interviewed by Lucien Crowder for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Jan 10, 2018
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018
Elon Musk leads 116 experts calling for outright ban of killer robots

11. On killer robots and human control Project Ploughshares
Discussion of the Reading
Robot friends and enemies. Relative merits of robot vs. human combatants
Meaningful human control. “that a machine applying force and operating without any human control whatsoever is broadly considered unacceptable”
Meaningless control. Robots decide on targets, timing, etc.
Accountability gap. Who is responsible when things go wrong?
Ban needed now. Is it?
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

12. Micro Robots in Medicine
Ingestible origami robot MIT (3 mins /\)
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018

13. Robotic Collective Behavior
A self-organizing thousand-robot swarm
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018
Radhika Nagpal
Self-Organizing Systems Research Group Harvard
What intelligent machines can learn from a school of fish (11 mins /\)

14. Human-Like Robots
This Might Be the Most Life-Like (And Creepiest) Robot Ever (4 mins Bloomberg News)
Showbotics: Snakebot, Sophia, eMotion Butterflies (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon April mins)
Erica by Hiroshi Ishiguro
Philosophers Look at Artificial Intelligence - Tufts Osher, Spring 2018
Humanoid Robot Tells Jokes on GMB! | Good Morning Britain (3 mins)
David Hanson hopes 'genius’ robots will win over humans Jan 16, 2018 Daily Mail
World’s first robot ‘citizen’ Sophia is calling for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia (1 min)
David Hanson with Sophia