Unit 3 On the move
Reading：
梦见中奖了预兆什么Self-driving cars—destination known?
Mr Zhang casually glances at the empty driver’s at and says, “Destination Grand Hotel. Family mode. Start.” The car responds immediately, easing smoothly into the busy traffic and avoiding obstacles on the road. Inside the car, the family have chon their entertainment from a pop-up display panel, ready for the journey ahead. This imagined 京东奢侈品网站scene provides a likely future reality for lf-driving cars, also known as autonomous vehicles.
However, before this evolution in transport becomes a revolution, it must be fully understood how lf-driving cars work. Put simply, lf-driving cars must “e” and “behave” appropriately to be safe on the road. They do this through various hardware and deep-learning artificial intelligence (AI). Cameras as well as nsors like radar and lidar cap实验感想
ture a variety of data from the external environment. Once the data is nt to the AI system, the “brain” of the lf-driving car, it is analyd and put together like a 瑜伽英文puzzle so that the car can “e” its surroundings and determine its position. Meanwhile, the AI system identifies patterns from the data and learns from them. An action plan is then created to instruct the car how to “behave” in real time: stay in the lane, move into another one, speed up or slow down. Next, the necessary mechanical controls, such as the accelerator and brakes, are activated by the AI system, allowing the car to move in line with the action plan.
This may sound perfect in theory, but in reality technological barriers exist in the development of lf-driving cars. The perception system is an example of this. Road traffic in the real world is so complicated that unfamiliar or unexpected conditions may occur at any time. Since it is unreasonable for the databa to include every possible object in every possible condition ahead of time, the system might not recognize 皮炎能彻底治好吗everything on the road. In one tragic real-life ca, a lf-driving car’s perception system failed to identify a white truck against the bright, sunlit sky. It assumed that there was no
obstacle in its path and did not activate the brakes, causing the death of the driver in the lf-driving car. Accidents like this po the question of how lf-driving cars can better learn and improve their behaviours on the road to ensure safe journeys.
Another aspect that needs careful consideration is the ethical respons lf-driving cars would make in specific circumstances. The Trolley Problem is often ud to discuss difficult ethical choices they may face. For example, should tho in the lf-driving car always be protected first even if it means endangering the lives of pedestrians? Should the lf-driving car hit a single pedestrian to avoid crashing into a group of pedestrians? And would it make a different decision if the pedestrian were a child or a nior citizen? The moral dilemma that comes with how to ethically program lf-driving cars has yet to be resolved.
Besides such ethical concerns, the legal situations the autonomous vehicle industry is likely to be confronted with have fuelled heated debates. In this emerging industry, manufacturing and programming standards are not yet uniform. Moreover, the quality and
safety of the technology ud in lf-driving cars is still being challenged. This could lead to extraordinary cas like who should be held responsible when lf-driving cars are involved in accidents—should it be the driver, the software programmer or the manufacturer? Manufacturing and programming standards first have to be agreed upon to make it possible for law courts to decide who is at fault when things go wrong. As advances in autonomous vehicle design and technology are in progress, the final 家长的评价agreement on laws and regulations governing this industry remains to be en.
There can be little doubt that, despite all the challenges, lf-driving cars will form a big part of our future. The question is, what is next? Some argue that lf-driving cars should be allowed to operate without human control, while others are more cautious and believe that human operation, even if limited, is still necessary. Only time will reveal its true path. While the journey ahead is not without obstacles, the eventual destination is bound to be another milestone for humankind’s amazing vision and inventiveness.
Extended reading:
Racing towards the future:
a look at China’s high-speed rail network
In the distance, a white bullet-nod train is thundering down the track. It grows larger by the cond until it eventually slows and glides past the lines of waiting pasngers. As it eas to a stop, the train doors open with a hiss and the pasngers board with eager anticipation. Then its doors clo and the train departs exactly on time, its progress barely noticed as it quickly and silently gathers speed. Seated comfortably in the well-equipped, spacious carriages, the pasngers know that their journey ahead will be both福乐绵绵 effortless and relaxing.
Such scenes of contented pasngers being swiftly transported to their destinations are repeated many times a day all over China, as far as the high-speed rail (HSR) network夏南 extends. Since 2008, the HSR network has transported over 10 billion pasngers, tting a world record. There are now more than 7,000 high-speed trains running daily, some reaching speeds of up to 350 kilometres per hour, the fastest in the world of train tr
ansport. The HSR network has an overall length of around 40,000 kilometres in operation, covering almost all provincial-level regions of China. It not only greatly enhances the national railway’s efficiency, but also rves as the engine that keeps the country’s economic lifeblood flowing.
However, China’s high-speed rail network was not built overnight. The HSR project began in the 1990s and it has grown enormously since then. A key milestone was the relea of the HSR network blueprint in 2004, when the plan for “four vertical and four horizontal” corridors was put forward. Twelve years later, it was upgraded to “eight vertical and eight horizontal” corridors. Today, China boasts the world’s longest and most extensively ud HSR network, and is rightly considered the world leader in HSR construction.
