How the Canadian character is shaping the future of self-driving cars
[PhilNote: the author's point is that the personalities of the programmers is a differentiator between Canadian and US self-driving care algorithms.]
These past few weeks have seen the Canadian automotive industry threatened as trade negotiations progress with my country, the United States. Those who have followed the talks have been struck by the way they’ve reflected aspects of two national identities: On the one side is President Donald Trump and his team – pugnacious, belligerent, the picture of capricious emotion; on the other is Canada and its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chrystia Freeland – calm yet steadfast, all understated civility as she charts her cautious and sensible course.
What’s remarkable to me is the way this same duality played out during another drama that seems likely to disrupt the auto industry, albeit over the next decade. That drama is the development of the self-driving car – and there, the Canadian side’s national character served to ensure the project’s success.
Even today, after nine million miles of autonomous driving on public roads, none of the Waymo vehicles has ever been involved in a serious collision, let alone a fatal crash. Compare that with Tesla, which in May, 2016, saw former U.S. Navy SEAL Joshua Brown killed when his Autopilot-activated Model S crashed into the side of a tractor-trailer in Florida – just seven months after the public release of the Autopilot suite of self-driving features.
See the full story here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-how-the-canadian-character-is-shaping-the-future-of-self-driving-cars/