Elon Musk took a drive in one of his cars using the latest version of its full driverless software. The current software uses 300,000 lines of code to tell the cars how to turn left, how to respond to pedestrians and other vehicles, and so forth. Instead of code, the latest beta software is based on neural networks, meaning the computer has learned and will learn how to deal with various situations based on past experiences.
“It’s all nets, baby,” he said during the drive, “nothing but nets.” As I understand it, this is the approach George Hotz was taking when he was working on an his autonomous car software. Hotz tried to train his software without going through all of California’s state licensing requirements, and when the state and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tried to force him to comply with their regulations, he left the business. Continue reading
