Darpa Darpa Jihad

Thoughts on The Darpa Grand Challenge

Darpa Grand Challenge

By no means am I a scientist. I barely passed Biology and Chemistry in high school and never pursued any heavy science classes while in college. My brain has never had much of an aptitude for mathematics, and I can't tell you how things work. But I'm a dreamer at heart, and believe firmly that the human race is capable of amazing things when it sets it's mind to them. Perhaps this is why I am so fascinated with the Darpa Grand Challenge.

Until yesterday I had never heard of the Darpa Grand Challenge before. A year ago it was the stuff of science fiction: A government issued challenge to engineers around the country to develop an unmanned vehicle that can cover great distances quickly and without incident. One might be led to believe that this was a impossible wish based on 2004's results: not a single entry was able to finish the course. But here we are a year later and the results are much different. 23 teams entered the race and three cars finished. One more may yet finish today. I have seen the video, and it gives me chills.

It has become very clear to me in the last few months that robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to come of age. The fiction of movies like Batteries Not Included, Short Circuit, and the film on everone's mind, Terminator, are quickly becoming today's realities. I like the way that Darpa describes it's motives for commissioning such a vehicle: "It would be used to deliver medical supplies to the troops on the front lines" they say. That's good right? Well, it could just as easily deliver nuclear weapons to the enemy. And I'm sure there are far more sinister uses for this technology that I haven't yet begun to imagine.

But before I get too critical, I have to take a moment and revel in the achievement. It's great fun, isn't it? I imagine it wont' be long before we can all catch a cab to the airport that doesn't have a driver. Anyone remember Johnny Cab in Total Recall? Personal air transport on a massive scale could easily become a reality in the next fifty years too if we develop machines that are smart enough to get us where we need to go without a whole bunch of technical training. After all Sharper Image is selling Air Cars now. Soon, you may not need a pilot's license to drive one.

The unmanned cars of the Darpa Grand Challenge were not the first sign that Robots may be joining our lives sooner than we think. A few months back I read a story about the popular camel races in Saudi Arabia. It was a huge human rights issue because in their efforts to win at the high stakes game, camel owners were recruiting smaller and smaller people to jockey the camels. Eventually, young children became the preferred jockey. Camel Jockeying is pretty rough business I guess, and some of the children were falling off and getting trampled. Terrible PR, that.

Robots became a possible solution, and several prototype Jockeys were developed. Lighter and smarter than starved Saudi boys, before long the robots were competing and winning the races. Though boys are still used by some owners, many have become very happy with the robots. Will it be long before Robots are replacing Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jeff Gordon on the Nascar circuit? They once said that a woman could never race with the men, and robots might be joining Danica Patrick soon.

Although there are possible benefits to the rise of real Robot and AI technology, I still think that the Future Wars foretold in the Terminator movies might be closer than we think. But until they arrive, I will continue to look on with awe at events like the Grand Challenge, and anxiously wait for the big budget Transformers movie on the horizon to whet my appetite for what we are capable of beyond Johnny Five and Hummers that drive themselves.