2018年CRI Auto Industry Insiders Call for Public Education on AI at NAIAS

 

Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic at the on-going 2018 North American International Auto¹ Show, which will last until the 28th. Many auto industry insiders are suggesting that if anyone wants the technology to become a reality in the future, the public needs to be educated about it.

Our reporter Liu Kun sent back this report from the show floor in Detroit.

Without all the new car models at Cobo Center in downtown Detroit as a reminder², I would wonder whether I'm actually at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, because it seems that everyone at this year's Detroit Autos show is talking about artificial intelligence, or AI.

AI technology is being closely integrated into cars today. A good number of this year's newly released cars are either heavily invested in, or flirting³ with the idea, of an AI control center. Among the traditional Detroit big three, General Motors released Cruise AV, which has no steering⁴ wheel or pedals. Among German auto makers⁵, Audi contributed the 2019 edition of the A7 which features automated⁶ parking technology. And these two are just among the many who have ventured into AI technology.

While it is a big topic this year, many industry insiders are worrying about the fact the pubic now only has a vague idea of what AI is and some are even afraid to embrace the idea. And they say a lot of this has to do with popular media's depiction⁷ of AI technologies - and even what people see in the movies.

Sam Abuelsamid is senior research analyst⁸ with Navigant, a tech consulting company. At a forum⁹ held at the auto show, he said our current AI technology is far from as competent as images such as Skynet in the movie "The Terminator."

"I think there's definitely room for a lot of public education. I think probably most people when they think of AI they think of what they see in the movies. They think of something like HAL in '2001' or 'the Terminator'. They think of the idea of general artificial intelligence that can do everything humans can do at super human level. And that's not what we are doing here in automated driving. And in general I don't think that level of general artificial intelligence exists today or is really even close."

Danny Shapiro is Senior Director of Automotive at NVIDIA, an AI tech company. Talking about the current development of AI at the same forum, he said the current technology is still limited to simple tasks.

"So what we are at is that AI is able to achieve much better results on a specific task. A basic transportation example is that to recognize street signs, one approach is computer vision where you basically write software to analyze¹⁰ the frame of videos coming into the camera and detect what's in there. For example one of our partners Audi was working with a smart camera company who can have smart camera chip and computer vision software. They've spent two years basically developing codes to be able to recognize all the street signs in Germany. The approach we took with deep learning again is to feed in data, so data is what that's writing the software. So we put in thousands and thousands of pictures of a stop sign and labeled it as such, basically instructed it that this is a stop sign."

Looking into the future of AI, Ken¹¹ Washington, Chief Technology Officer at Ford¹² Motors, said the public needs to be reminded that no matter how the technology evolves, its ultimate function is to serve human beings.

"I think an important thing that we can help society with is helping¹³ the public understand that what we mean when we start tossing around these terms such as AI. Because what we really mean is that we mean software that can help and assist humans. We can't forget that this is about humans, not about software. It's about helping people. In the case of drive assist technologies, you still have a human driving the care and you are assisting that human. So then it's not something that you fear, it's something you are thankful for because it's helping you to lead a better life."

For CRI, this is Liu Kun reporting from Detroit, Michigan.

1 auto   

n.(=automobile)(口语)汽车

参考例句：

• Don't park your auto here.别把你的汽车停在这儿。
• The auto industry has brought many people to Detroit.汽车工业把许多人吸引到了底特律。

2 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

3 flirting   

v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Don't take her too seriously; she's only flirting with you. 别把她太当真，她只不过是在和你调情罢了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• 'she's always flirting with that new fellow Tseng!" “她还同新来厂里那个姓曾的吊膀子！ 来自子夜部分

4 steering   

n.操舵装置

参考例句：

• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration. 他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。
• Steering according to the wind, he also framed his words more amicably. 他真会看风使舵，口吻也马上变得温和了。

5 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 automated   

a.自动化的

参考例句：

• The entire manufacturing process has been automated. 整个生产过程已自动化。
• Automated Highway System (AHS) is recently regarded as one subsystem of Intelligent Transport System (ITS). 近年来自动公路系统(Automated Highway System,AHS)，作为智能运输系统的子系统之一越来越受到重视。

7 depiction   

n.描述

参考例句：

• Double rhythms, resounding through the lyric depiction and connecting with each other, indicate the thespian place of mankind and the cognition of the writer to this thespian place. 这双重旋律互为表里，表明了人类的某种悲剧性处境以及作家对这种悲剧性处境的感受和认识。
• A realistic depiction of scenes from everyday domestic life. 日常家居生活的写实画。

8 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。

9 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

10 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。

11 ken   

n.视野，知识领域

参考例句：

• Such things are beyond my ken.我可不懂这些事。
• Abstract words are beyond the ken of children.抽象的言辞超出小孩所理解的范围.

12 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。