Apple confirms work on autonomous cars – 01net.com

The letter was signed by Steve Kenner and it does leaves more room for doubt : the firm of Cupertino has confirmed its interest for the autonomous car. It is, in fact, in a letter sent to the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency in charge of road safety), the director of product integrity at Apple, said that the group ” is investing heavily in the learning of the machines, as well as in automation and it is excited by the potential of automated systems in several areas, including that of transport “. If the name of project Titan is not clearly cited, it is now official that Apple believes also in the car.

Working with the NHTSA, but not only

In his letter, Steve Kenner said that the group is ready to cooperate with the NHTSA and bend to the rules created by the agency. “Autonomous vehicles have the potential to greatly improve the human experience, to prevent millions of accidents and thousands of deaths on the roads each year [...] it is essential that those who develop and deploy autonomous cars follow strict rules in the design of production vehicles,” says Steve Kenner.

in Addition to this situation that all the american manufacturers would, in any way respect, Apple believes that all of the companies working on the autonomous car should share the different scenarios encountered during the tests and the data collected (anonymised). In this case, Steve Kenner thinking in particular of the data gathered on the behavior of the vehicles and on the state of the roads, but also on the scenarios that have given rise to an accident. The fact of the pooling of these data would allow everyone to have an amount of information that a single company could not harvested alone.

It is a fact, the vehicles are technologically very advanced, are able to collect valuable information on the road to share with all the vehicles on the road.

also read

anyway, by suggesting to the NHTSA to create such a shared database, Apple could well be looking for a backdoor to retrieve all of the information that companies like Google, Ford, Volvo or Tesla have already stored over millions of kilometres travelled on the roads. But the idea that they share so easily what is today the intelligence of their vehicle seems to us quite difficult to believe… or in any case, not without consideration.

in addition, Apple makes its contribution to the adventure of the autonomous car. In line with its stance on privacy, Apple encourages the NHTSA to collaborate with these experts and to raise awareness of the automotive industry to ensure that all data collected shall respect the privacy of the users.
Steve Kenner also insists on the need for transparency around the process of decisions taken by the algorithms as well as the legal aspects related. What could be summed up crudely in a few questions : is that the car sacrifices-t-it in case of danger, the pedestrian or the passenger ? Who is responsible in case of accident ? Etc.

essential for users to adopt this new mode of transport confidently and to enable manufacturers to develop their car, observing the same rules. It’s seeing the beginning of a will to standardize efforts ? Perhaps, but, in terms of the challenges, this discussion might take a little bit of time.