Formula E to feature autonomous car racing • Hacker News Board

Re: Formula E to feature autonomous car racing

#31

Post by wycx » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:20 PM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #20

olau wrote: post #5

Awesome! Perhaps this could end up in a place where the focus is on the cars and the technical performance, rather than human driver skill. For those of us who are more interested in engineering challenges than the celebrity driver of the day.

Oh no it will be about programmer skill, with celebrity coders.

I could not find a video online, but some may remember the post race press conference when Eddie Irvine (driving for Jaguar) thanked the guy at the factory that wrote the launch control software for his great start.

Re: Formula E to feature autonomous car racing

#32

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:25 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #9

If it weren't for regulations, i am sure F1 would already be like this or close to it. Compared to public traffic, race tracks are quite easy to master for AI. They had active suspension systems and traction control in the early nineties where the driver was already reduced to mostly just pushing the pedal and steering but the FIA banned most of those driver aids because real human driving skill and error is just mor…

[deleted]

Re: Formula E to feature autonomous car racing

#33

Post by excel2flow » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:27 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #22

So who is going to be interested in motorsports when in 15+ years AI beats the best human drivers? Not only the races will be boring (cheering for an automaton Lewiz Hamiltobot?), but all humans would look like total losers. The "easy" way for AI is to record all telemetry of a super fast human lap and then tweak it with machine learning for subsequent runs. No human is going to be 100% consistent all the time.

There's barely anyone cheering even for "Lewiz Hamiltononbot". In current F1 the pilot is merely a ballast - the result is basically predetermined by technology.

Also there's no need to use "super fast human lap" - you can compute optimal lap, it's been done. The challenge will be to design AI to beat your opponents - then it gets interesting.

Re: Formula E to feature autonomous car racing

#34

Post by Joeri » Sat, Nov 28, 2015, 3:56 PM UTC

bitL wrote: post #22

So who is going to be interested in motorsports when in 15+ years AI beats the best human drivers? Not only the races will be boring (cheering for an automaton Lewiz Hamiltobot?), but all humans would look like total losers. The "easy" way for AI is to record all telemetry of a super fast human lap and then tweak it with machine learning for subsequent runs. No human is going to be 100% consistent all the time.

People didn't stop paying attention to chess competitions when AI beat humans. We care about sports not because humans are better at things than machines - for most things they're not - but because it's humans beating other humans.

Re: Formula E to feature autonomous car racing

#35

Post by rasz_pl » Sun, Nov 29, 2015, 5:15 AM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #9

If it weren't for regulations, i am sure F1 would already be like this or close to it. Compared to public traffic, race tracks are quite easy to master for AI. They had active suspension systems and traction control in the early nineties where the driver was already reduced to mostly just pushing the pedal and steering but the FIA banned most of those driver aids because real human driving skill and error is just mor…

>FIA banned most of those driver aids because real human driving skill and error is just more exciting to the general public.

no, they banned it for the same reason they banned all other neat stuff like 6 wheels, ground effect aerodynamics, unrestricted turbos resulting in 1300HP, engine capacity/fuel flow, actually ALL engine development (everyone uses same engine). Cost, smaller teams had trouble keeping up with R&D.

F1 is boring right now, everyone drives same engine, same tires. Formula E is even worse - everyone drives same car.