Ron Fink, a roboticist excluded from DARPA’s 2004 Grand Challenge despite his team’s advanced architecture, pivoted to the International Robot Racing Federation (IRRF), a Nevada-based 300-mile autonomous race testing ultra-high-resolution vision, real-time terrain mapping, and patent-pending AI—including "dreaming" capabilities—to prevent accidents. Motivated by his nephew’s 2001 tractor death, Fink rejects government control over vehicles, prioritizing safety and liberty, like collision avoidance for blind users or war-zone supply lines. With 80 teams competing and media buzz from Discovery to Fox, the tech could reshape transportation, cutting fuel costs by 7%–8% while displacing jobs, though military combat applications remain off-limits. [Automatically generated summary]
I took my webcam back to a picture of me a couple of minutes ago because everything else is posted as it should be.
We've got some really wicked stuff up there for you.
I told you last night the Hampton Court Ghost is clearly the paranormal picture of the year.
Well, now it's no more than that.
We've got it all on the website.
The Hampton Court Ghost The Video.
That's right.
We've got the video for you along with a little British commentary.
And then at the very end, a moving GIF image of the ghost actually opening the doors, making the appearance in the picture you've all seen now, so famous, and then closing the doors.
And baby, we've got it on the website, coast2coastam.com.
That's item one.
like that'd be enough all by itself item two comes rolling into my email as usual toward the end of the day today in the form of I've got one.
Now this may turn out to be
A man named Thomas, and if he wants to identify himself any further than that, because I've got him here on the phone, sent me an email along with this photograph, which is, in terms of being detailed and clear, Class A, 10 on a scale of 10.
Now, this is a photograph of a saucer on the desert floor near Sedona, Arizona.
In a moment, I'll have Thomas on because, bless his heart, I wish more people would do this so we could understand the providence of a photograph that we're about to examine.
But he gave me his phone number, and so I called him up.
I said, hey, got to come on the show, right?
In a moment, I'll have Thomas explain what you can see.
It's under listeners' emails, and boom, there's the photograph of whatever in the hell it is on the floor of the desert near Sedona.
Now, you click to get the whole story, which he sent, and the large photograph.
And it is a very large, very clear photograph.
Now, as I said, there may turn out to be some very conventional explanation for what an apparent flying saucer would be doing sitting in broad daylight, perhaps even day after day, in the middle of the desert near Sedona.
But I'm looking forward to what that explanation is going to be in the meantime.
If you want to see it, it's at the website along with the video of the Hampton Court Ghost.
So look out, coast to coast AM.
Here they come.
That's where you want to go.
Coast2coastAM.com.
Two things.
The UFO you're about to hear about, well, actually, technically an unidentified grounded object, because it's on the ground.
Looks like it made a soft landing, if in fact it landed at all.
I'm telling you, it's really clear.
So those who complain about foggy, hard-to-see photographs, prepare yourself for a big shock.
will tell you the story of it in a moment Thank you.
All right.
I mean, this is a dead, flat, clear, high-res picture of a disc on the ground somewhere in the Sedona area.
I was trying to figure out what that other mark was there.
And you, of course, are correct now that I look at it correctly.
As you have mentioned, it probably hit first there.
Another scenario could be, of course, that it was driven there by whatever in the hell came up that, if you want to call it a road, it's not a road, it's path.
Whatever came up.
Oh, my gosh.
unidentified
As I say, I was so excited about this, I couldn't wait to pass it on to somebody else because I've been listening to your program for years, and I just have been fascinated with the kind of stories that you've had.
The government on Sunday raised the national threat level to orange, indicating high risk of terrorist attack.
Said threat indicators are perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001.
With strikes possible during the holidays, Americans were promised extensive and considerable protections around the country and told to stick to their travel plans, despite intelligence indicating al-Qaeda may be seeking again to use airplanes as weapons and exploit suspected weaknesses in U.S. aviation security.
There's nothing laughable about this, except the fact that they're saying Al-Qaeda probably is going to use airplanes again.
They're probably going to do something.
unidentified
But, you know, if you've got a plane trip planned, don't worry about it.
For the sake of the economy, that would be their wish.
And certainly I understand that you just can't live your life afraid of these jerks.
You just can't.
The odds of your getting hijacked and rammed into a building are smaller than probably a crash for some other reason.
Libya hopes to reopen relations with us, the West, and begin to sign lucrative oil deals with companies here.
That after, the day after, as a matter of fact, they said they were going to turn in their weapons of mass destruction and join the world community and embrace us all.
So now they'd like some big oil contracts.
And they'll probably get them.
Acting on intelligence gleaned from the capture of Saddam Hussein, that would indicate that he's talking right, U.S. troops rounded up dozens of suspected rebels during two days of raids in towns where loyalty to the deposed president remains strong.
So this means that we've been having a chat with Saddam.
And as I understand it, Saddam was turned over to the CIA and that they are actively questioning him and apparently getting some answers because they're rounding up bad guys really quickly.
So I guess Saddam has decided that speaking is the better part of valor in whatever situation.
I mean, what kind of situation do you think they have him in right now?
You don't imagine he's laying back on the couch watching an NFL almost playoff game, right?
They're probably asking him really hard questions.
And who knows where they've got him?
And I don't think anybody out here is really worried about the nature and the manner of the questioning, right?
So apparently we're Getting some pretty good info.
Now, listen to me.
On the 28th, I shall be here, filling in for George.
Actually, on the 26th, and then the 28th, and then the following Sunday, of course, the 31st, I'll be here.
And this is very important.
On the 28th, and then on Sunday, the 31st, as we begin the new year, I will do the traditional thing that we have done now for well over a decade, and I will take predictions for two nights, whatever all else we're doing.
For two nights, I will take predictions on the air for the year 2004.
You're only allowed to make one prediction, so I want you to consider it very carefully.
We want our hit rate to go up.
Now, the only way that can happen is if you really make a shot at doing this right, and that means relaxing your mind, sit back, tune out the world, and try and open your mind to some event that's going to occur in the year 2004.
And after you've made that serious attempt, I'll only take one prediction from you during those two nights.
You call me, I'll number them, and we'll see how your paranormal level checks out at the end of the year.
It's an awful lot of fun.
The 28th and then the 31st from the high desert in the middle of the night, doing what we do here.
You know, really, wouldn't it be something, I mean, I'm sure there's a conventional explanation for this apparent flying saucer right in the middle of the desert.
There's got to be something, right?
But just suppose for a second that there isn't.
Suppose that we just found the great giant smoking gun, or in this case, saucer, even though it's not smoking.
Now, I know the pixel people out there will fiendishly go to work on this, and they'll blow it up to the umpteenth pixel, and I'm sure I'll be getting reports shortly.
But it doesn't look that way.
Shadows look pretty good.
Looking at the edges looks pretty good.
So I'll leave it to the pixel people.
They do look like tiles on there, as you mentioned, though.
I guess being an extra, you don't get a sense of the larger story in the movie, do you?
unidentified
Not really, except the assistant directors wander around saying, okay, people, remember the planet's undergoing wacky weather and everyone's dead, and you're trying to get south, so, you know, look sad, look freaked out.
It's hard because it's so funny.
It's hilarious.
You know, it's hard work, but it was a heck of a lot of fun.
And I got out of my car and I'm coming into the house, and it's a beautiful night.
I love to look at the stars.
I have a telescope.
I listen to your show all the time.
And so I glance up, beautiful clear sky, looking towards Orion.
And as I glance up, I'm looking back down.
I thought I saw like three or four falling stars at once.
So I look back up, and they're still there, and they're moving.
And there's more than just three or four.
There's like a whole column, these gray disc-looking or circular shapes moving across the sky in rows of maybe three, four, five, six, maybe nine at the most going across in this long column moving roughly southwest to northeast towards Dulles Airport.
and just very bizarre.
And so you stood and...
I'm looking up at this, watching this, and it's completely silent.
One other thing, it's near Sedona, which is in the middle of the desert.
You know, there's not a lot of swamp gas there.
unidentified
I understand.
When you look at the way the government's treated us in regards to the way they do the investigations, if I come across something like that, I mean, I'm not going to tell a government agency.
I'm going to do my own investigations, call every citizens investigative group, you know, MUFON, Citizens Against UFO Secrets.
yeah and do the wild day at seven seven five seven two seven one two nine five no no no no no no no no no no see you know you don't get to do that We don't allow that on the program.
I mean, after a few minutes, it came forward, and then it went back.
Then a small plane started coming over from the airport, so it darted real quick to the south into Fresno.
Then it came back, and then after the plane had gone, you know, come on, it came back, and then it went over to the other direction, north, and disappeared.
So obviously, if TV got hold of it, then they must have had footage or got word of it somewhere.
Or did they?
unidentified
No, just this, a lady had reported, another teacher, a teacher had reported it.
And I saw no one was awake at 4.20.
I'm sure very few people probably have seen it.
It came back in the original place, and then it disappeared.
It came back.
And what is amazing, it started getting light out about 5 o'clock at night.
I had my binoculars.
I zoomed in on it and had different bluish green lights going around it.
And I zeroed in on it, and it started getting light out.
So I could actually saw the shape of the ship was octagon.
It looked like it was octagon.
And I could see the silvery, like a regular gelot type of color to it.
And it just, boom.
I had it zeroed right in.
It's five o'clock in the morning, and then it just got so light out that it was getting hard to see it, but I could zero it in for a while, and then it just gone off.
I believe it was two, yeah, I think it was two years ago.
And a lady had a teacher had reported it on one of the local TV stations that she had seen.
I think it's the same one she saw.
Like, this is 4.20 in the morning.
I was taking care of the guy's lawn next door because, you know, there was no one there, and I had to water the lawn at night, and I just have to keep it, get it all watered up.
Ron Fink is coming up after the break, and we're going to talk about robots.
That's what he's right in the middle of robots.
I wonder how many of you got to see the Sony robot, the incredibly articulating Sony robot.
Well, we'll ask about that a whole lot more because he's involved.
Ron is involved in robotics.
From the high desert in the middle of the night, man, get up there and take a look at that saucer sitting on the ground somewhere out there outside Sidonia.
I'm sure there's a really good explanation for this.
Probably.
unidentified
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
A cup of wine.
Got a bug from you, girl.
But I don't need a cure.
I just stay up and can't.
If I can, for sure.
To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
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From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
Anybody with a name like Mad Max, you've got to look out for.
He has time and time again shattered all previous notions of what technology can do in the 70s.
He created his own voice recognition system in the 80s.
His ideas contributed to missile defense systems that could maintain the focus of light over thousands of mirrors.
Maybe that's where they got the smoke and mirrors thing.
Star Wars.
Ron also designed and programmed an entire line of 80-plus artificial intelligence robots for a major company.
In the 90s, he developed real-time map-based GIS tracking software for inventory asset management and logistics for two major companies.
Sounds like he was getting into a lot more serious work in the 90s, huh?
His team tied to, well, more serious in the sense of, I've got to get out there and make some money.
His team tied together phone systems, voice recognition systems, legacy systems, power grid control slash monitoring systems, and major accounting systems in record time and with no, and that's in capitals, no programming errors.
Even made enough spare time to found a charity where he reached out to America's best untapped minds and gave them the focus and training to succeed.
In the 2000s, his team designed voice interactive navigation systems currently installed in a variety of cars around the world.
I wonder if we should call him Mad Max in a moment.
When I was growing up, I was born in 1945, end of the war, baby.
And, oh, I watched all the science fiction movies like everybody else.
And I was promised that by the time I got to be the age I am now, oh my God, the world would be a place in which every undesirable task, every drudgery, piece of drudgery and junk that I had to do in my life would be taken care of by robots.
Now you're telling me this car would be able to, in today's environment, and I'm talking about putting it out on streets and highways with other cars occupied by humans.
It would be able to navigate under those conditions?
I'm certainly not a programmer, so I can't begin to understand how you would instill what you're using the word ethics to describe into a robotic vehicle.
Maybe can you give us a hint of how you approach such a job?
Now, the operating system, for example, is a lower level than the user interface for a program.
And so, at the lowest levels, every program that works with the computer power, the computer processing power, has to go through these lower levels.
Now, if these lower levels can understand the objects that are being manipulated and can actually understand any kind of a relative value of objects and what kind of things might cause harm to those objects, then this lower level can make a judgment call about whether or not it's ethical to proceed.
Or in the event that the accident cannot be prevented, it will actually make choices to minimize the effects of the accident.
For example, if you're going to broadside a car, you know, obviously the computer could calculate that that would cause loss of life, and it might be able to turn or adjust the vehicle's attitude in some position where the broadside could be mitigated.
Ron Mad Max Fink is my guest, and we're discussing, and I had no idea we'd be talking about vehicles that would, well, maybe choose their own path and decide Their own ethics and drive themselves, if necessary, or perhaps if you'd like them to.
Can you imagine the TV commercials we're going to get for this stuff?
To be clear here, Ron is involved in a DARPA challenge, a grand challenge event of some sort for this vehicle, along with about how many other teams do you think?
Well, they were looking for how well we were financed, how far along we were, whether or not our architecture would work, whether or not we had working systems in place.
They did not want to send anybody to the QID with the limited number of slots that they could provide without being certain that they could actually make it there.
We learned about the Great Challenge in September.
And so our systems and our sponsors were not far enough along that they felt that we would actually be able to finish on March 6th.
However, I did receive a phone call from somebody I am not allowed to identify inside of DARPA, which said that they thought our architecture, our software architecture was the most robust and certainly the most powerful of any of the 106 teams.
Well, we believed, based on the rules that were posted on their website and the rules that they were going to operate by, that anybody who could put in a technical paper that would be acceptable, that would show that their scientists would say this could work, would be allowed to enter the QID in March.
Now, here's what I have always thought stopped us from being able to do a robotic car, and that is that there would have to be some sort of electronic signature or signal for it to follow literally down the road to keep it exactly on the road.
Are you telling me that GPS and other technologies have come far enough to just use what we've got, and what we've got would be sometimes a dotted line, sometimes a line on the right, sometimes not.
Right.
And all kinds of intersections and a million things that can happen.
Little kids running out in the middle of the street after balls.
You know, you've seen all the films, right?
Yes.
So how can you take GPS and tell me what else and turn it into a drivable, you know, a reality?
DARPA was unable to find any company anywhere that could build a truly autonomous vehicle, and that's why they started the challenge.
And when the 106 teams got narrowed to 45 and then to 25, there were a whole lot of teams that were fielding new technology, people who in their garages had quit their jobs and poured their life savings into building this thing because they thought they could, that brought in all kinds of ideas and new thinking, out-of-the-box thinking.
And so it was kind of a disaster for many of the smaller teams that were put into this marginal category.
For example, there were a number of teams that were fielded by large, well-known technical universities, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, and others, that were not put into the maybe status.
The maybe status was primarily reserved for people who didn't have enough of a reputation that...
Yes, I think so.
They did have to leave the field.
They did have to make choices.
And I have to respect DARPA for the thing that they started.
But what we did is in November when we saw this coming down the road.
Well, the International Robot Racing Federation has what it calls the open challenge, and that's going to be in September.
And it's not closed.
It's open to everybody.
I understand from some teams that they tried to apply for the DARPA race and weren't even accepted in the first place, more than the 106 teams, because they, for example, had team leaders who weren't U.S. citizens.
And so that was a concern that DARPA had.
And so those teams didn't get to play.
There's a lot of interest in Japan and Europe in the International Robot Racing Federation.
I want to know how a vehicle would take GPS information and whatever else might be available to it and be good enough to stay on the road, avoiding hazards, operating safely in every way one can imagine.
How is that technology integrated to keep a vehicle that close to the right place at the right time, at the right speed, blah, and all the rest of it?
G-Ron, you know, it seems to me as though the work you're doing is more crucial to the operation autonomous vehicle than somebody who would have come up with the mechanical abilities to respond to the software orders you're capable of giving it.
I mean, that just seems like almost kids' play compared to what you're doing.
Well, the last system I worked on actually was that sort of a system.
It basically had a voice interface, and the entertainment systems, the telephone, and just about every other entertainment or communication system on the vehicle would respond to voice commands.
And not only that, but the navigation system could actually tell you in a normal human voice where you were, where you were going, you don't know how to get there.
And in the qualification runs, the black box concept is tested in a variety of ways to make sure that no matter what happens, that vehicle will shut down in a safe manner.
And if it does not shut down in a safe manner, it isn't allowed into the race.
Well, wouldn't the prospect of somebody who's unaware of the race, for example, I mean, looking over at one of the robots and seeing a car with no driver, now that's going to cause societal problems right there.
It would for me if I looked over and, good lord, there's no one in there.
Oh, that sounds like it'd be fun to watch, doesn't it?
unidentified
cutting through the countryside, destroying everything in its path, it's Autobot.
You're dirty and sweet, can't even lie, don't look back, and I love you.
You're dirty and sweet, I'm mad.
When you're sitting in the mood, you've got the teeth that are hiding upon you.
You're dirty and sweet, Hit the red button, Ron, and let's rock!
Hit it on, bang it on, hit it on!
Sensible, philogical, oh, responsible, practical.
Then they show me a world I could feel so dependable.
Oh, cynical, oh, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world is free.
Which can come to be such a sinful mind when all the time.
So, please tell me who I am I said, I wanted to say I'll be calling you a radical A
liberal, a fanatical criminal Now, won't you sign up for me We'd like to be your acceptable We're respectable All presentable, a vegetable Oh, J-J-J-B-Y-A-P-E Want to take a ride?
To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
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well i'm trying to send it again here on some area It rejected it again.
It took the almost the whole thing, then said rejected because it thinks it's spam.
So there is an example of a stupid program not or misunderstanding what it's got hold of somehow or another, somewhere along the line.
It might not be my SP, it might be the master ISP or something else along line, but it's deciding it's spam, which it's not.
And so translate that to your business.
And in making these decisions, I mean, look at what just happened to me.
If you're in a car and you've got a car making decisions for you, have we really advanced far enough to really have a car being able to make decisions for you?
Anyway, actually, what I want to do is go back to the all-terrain thing.
Actually, that sounds like an awful lot of fun, particularly here in Nevada, where we've got, you saw that flying saucer picture I had up there, that kind of territory.
So it would have to make an awful lot of decisions along the way.
We have a subsystem that is an obstacle computer system.
And it looks at all the data and decides what obstacles are there, whether or not they're part of the landscape, or whether or not they're capable of movement, whether or not they're animal or human, and just what kind of obstacle they are, and therefore what behaviors that kind of obstacle has.
And the obstacle computer has a very advanced learning algorithm built into it.
So when it gains experience with a certain kind of obstacle, it now recognizes that obstacle better, and it recognizes how it will behave better.
And so it can actually anticipate the behavior of other objects so that it can make plans ahead of time about how to avoid the obstacle.
So for example, it knows how humans behave, and it knows how certain kinds of animals behave.
It knows how rocks don't behave.
It understands concepts of trees and bushes and brush.
It knows about barbed wire fences and chain link fences.
It knows about water and how to tell how deep the water is.
And with these kinds of skills, it knows in advance what kind of actions it can take with relation to the other vehicle.
For example, in the racing situation, the water navigation rules apply in most cases because you're in an open area, not on roads.
So, for example, the water navigation rules specify how you can overtake a boat.
It's going to be very important for you to understand where this race is going to be because if it's going to be, for example, in the Nevada desert, it's kind of like the surface of Mars out here.
You're not going to encounter necessarily a lot of water unless they plan it that way.
But you're certainly going to encounter a lot of desert hazards.
And then the point field also has an RGB and a T associated with it, and that's the color spectrum and the temperature.
So now it knows the temperature, the color, and the exact XYZ position of every point, every pixel in the array.
And the array is very dense.
Now it takes this point field and it analyzes it based on a number of factors and it turns it into a terrain map which it compares with terrain data in its database.
And now from that it knows its exact position and its orientation or attitude and its vector.
For example if the vehicle is going in a straight line but it's rotating around the yaw axis, you know that it doesn't have control of itself and it needs to be brought back into control.
I mean is there somebody at the wheel, you know, like keeping his hand off the wheel and off everything else until somebody else says, hey, grab the wheel.
And is your software to the point now where the guy behind the wheel is so relaxed that he's given it up and he's laying in the back seat taking a nap?
And it's new because we just spearheaded getting that formed after Thanksgiving.
So it's a work in process, but its concept and its mission is to achieve breakthrough technology through grand contests, grand competitions.
And the reason that we say that is because in the technology world today, corporations take little tiny baby steps with risk.
They want to be real sure that they can easily accomplish the programming or technology and that they have a ready market for it.
And so anything that's far out tends to stay far out until enough of a ground swell or preparation, if you will, a bed of technology builds up around it that the thing becomes an easy thing.
Well, I'm curious, Ron, do you know offhand what large companies like Ford and Chevrolet, they sponsor people, I understand, like you, but are they in their own research labs going down these roads, do you think, themselves?
I believe left to itself, the market would get around to it in 10 or 20 years.
I think that the mere fact that we are turning this kind of really advanced technology, way out there stuff, into entertainment means that the people who want to do this kind of stuff have a venue that they can finance their work with.
For example, can you imagine going to a venture capitalist and you're a garage guy and you say, well, you know, with a few hundred thousand dollars, I think I can build this autonomous vehicle.
And the venture capitalist goes, uh-huh.
And he knows that there's been $2 billion spent on it by DARPA so far and that they've pretty much come up empty-handed.
And they know that the best thing that they've seen so far is magnetic line followers or something like that.
And you're trying to tell me that you can build an autonomous vehicle where everybody else has failed so far.
And so they're not going to take that kind of risk.
So by turning this into entertainment and by building a venue where really out there technology projects that are high-risk projects can be paid for because of their entertainment value and their competition value,
then what we are doing, and this is not the only race, not the only venue, then we're creating a whole environment that can advance the world's technology at a far more rapid rate than the corporate would save a lot of lives, too.
And so when the opportunity came in September, we were all over it.
But now, even more so, with the new International Robot Racing Federation advancing technology by leafs and bounds through its entertainment and competition value, we expect not only to do that for autonomous vehicles and keep advancing autonomous vehicles, but for many other things as well.
Just tell me as much about it as you can, what you expect to have when you have your finished product, when you have the finished product in your hands.
We're expecting all of those capabilities to be online for the race.
We expect to be able to fully recognize our terrain, be able to understand the objects that we're encountering and what they do, and to be able to give those objects values in terms of whether or not we can are allowed to destroy them or harm them or come near them,
but also to understand what behaviors that they will have and anticipate, have plan B, plan C, and plan D already online in case the object does something unexpected.
Well, we know that DARPA is planning to make us go along railroad sidings and be able to navigate those ourselves.
We know that they are going to put us through freeway underpasses, you know, where, you know, those little underpasses where the washes and the animals can cross the freeway and so forth.
And they know that they have planned several areas where GPS is not available because they want to see how the vehicles handle it when the GPS is not available.
And they are not giving the actual waypoints of the course.
My car went into passing here and we took off with dust.
So we were doing nine beeps, but the left in the dust.
When I picked in the mirror of my car, I couldn't believe my eyes.
The little black camera was right behind.
I think that was five.
now we're doing a hundred and ten this certainly was a race for a ramble to pass and caddy would be a big disgrace the guy must have wanted to pass me out as he kept on tooting his horn i'll show him that a cadillac is not a cartoon scorn beep beep beep beep beep beep his horn was beep beep beep Now we're doing 120 as fast as I can go The rampant pull outside of me As if we're going slow The fellow roll down his window And yell for me to hear Hey buddy, how?
Well, help me to understand how I mean, in most ways of thinking, if you're doing even 120, or even 100, you would think the logic would say this is inherently unsafe.
I really have this feeling that you're going to be getting a knock on your door, and it's going to be somebody from some kind of agency who's going to be very interested in, you know, you've got an awful lot laid out for an autonomous vehicle there, software-wise.
So we hope to market our technology in a number of very helpful ways.
And we view this as a great way to showcase what we can do, but we also view it as a great way to showcase what the other teams can do as well.
So for the IRRF, the Open Challenge, there is a committee that actually will do all of the race setup without my involvement so that there's no advantage to the home team, so to speak.
And we're going to run the race along with everybody else.
But there is some cooperation that's happening among the teams.
Part of the rules, and also in DARPA's rules, by the way.
We're not to interfere with the other vehicles.
When we pass them, we have to pass them safely.
The responsibility for the safety is on the passing vehicle, not on the vehicle being passed.
The QID, of course, the E-stop has to be in effective.
And there will be a number of challenges that the QID itself with qualification runs in the case of the open challenge that will decide whether or not the vehicle actually is autonomous and can run the course.
The Open Challenge, we're expecting around 80 teams to try out.
And we're going to have numerous events along the way, early qualification runs, if you will, and they'll all be media events and very sponsor-friendly.
It will be a four-day-long event that can be translated not only into a big entertainment event, but a chance for the teams to showcase their technology and a place where people interested in talking to teams about purchasing their technology can go.
It will be like a giant trade show and entertainment.
For example, in the 70s, I developed an algorithm, or series of algorithms, that allow the computer to go into a dream-like state when it is not using all its cycles.
And it would use the spare cycles to do random associations and then test the associations for patterns that match.
And then remember those patterns in a separate database so that when it's awake and it's called on to do creative things, it can go to the associations it made in its dream state.
Well, actually, we don't want to achieve sentience until we are absolutely certain that our ethics components work in all settings and cannot be corrupted.
If you damage the prefrontal lobe of a human or some other accident of birth or whatever damages the prefrontal lobe, then he loses that seat of ethics and care about other people.
And now losing that, he can slide into a number of aberrations which are dangerous to the rest of humanity.
And that's been proven time and time again.
Serial murderers, serial rapists, serial people who capture people and torture them to death.
And even people who eat people.
So I, you know.
Sentience is a thing that has to be governed by ethics.
On the 28th and the 31st of this month, that's right, last day of the year.
We get to bring in the new year.
As we traditionally have with your predictions.
Now, I want to stress this one more time because I want a good hit rate this year.
So that means that to make your prediction, you just don't grab it out of the air, yank it out of the air and make it.
I want you to sit in a comfortable, quiet place, let your mind wander into blank areas, and try to pluck a prediction for the year 2004 from it that's going to be on the mark.
And that's really your best bet for doing this and for us to get a good group of hits for next year.
So I'm going to be depending on you now, and I really mean that.
Take a moment out.
Just set aside a little time in your life to go through the process and try to imagine a major event that's going to occur next year.
We'll be taking those predictions, and I expect nothing but hits.
All right, let's rock.
First time caller line, you are on the air with Ron Madmack Sfink.
unidentified
Hi, Ron.
Hi, Art.
Hi.
Well, you guys have been talking about off-roading and 135 miles an hour.
I've been up with my baby who's got a cold and I'm out of cold medicine.
And what I'd like is a prediction from Ron.
How far away are we from the time when I could get on my computer, dial into Walmart, order what I want, and send my car to get it for me?
Because I don't have the, you know, the ethics aren't in place yet.
And I don't, I'd rather not see this get developed ahead of schedule, so to speak.
But we can talk about the ability to see patterns that are not identical.
For example, a lot of people say there's a popular saying that says the history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
And a sentient being, like a human being, understands when it examines it that this was similar to that, even though the dates are different and the facts are different, that it's the same sort of things that are associated with that event, maybe the same kinds of human emotions or the same kinds of reactions to poverty or whatever else.
And so humans look at that and say, there's a pattern here.
why are the others not safe to say is it because because i believe you might you Well, I just believe that most people have their own concepts about what it would take for sentience to occur.
Or maybe they believe that sentience is not possible in a machine.
And for now, I think I would just as soon leave it that way.
Okay, the Forbidden Project was a book and a movie about the United States and Russia both turning over their defensive and offensive capabilities to computers.
And the Forbid Project computer on our side, of course, got out-of-control.
And it decided, for example, and here's the real problem, Ron: that what human beings were doing, we're just going to wander a little here, was so ultimately suicidal for them from a population point of view,
from a ecological point of view, bearing in mind we need the oxygen and the atmosphere and all that filtered sunlight and all the rest of that, that what we were doing was so ultimately suicidal that for our own good,
going back to the first rule of robotics, it made decisions that were expedient and deadly for many.
And all living according to it within the first law of robotics.
I believe that people cannot progress without the ability to choose.
And I am completely against any kind of machine limiting that choice.
So from a personal point of view, it would be a cold day in the hot regions before I ever wrote a line of code that would allow a computer to limit a person's freedom and freedom of choice.
The capabilities of your automatic or atomic vehicles, for example, if you had a human driver, mid-age 40 to 50s, and he suffers, say, such a heart attack, a massive heart attack.
Late-breaking news, and the car, of course, crashed and ran off the roadway.
unidentified
Exactly.
Would your atomic vehicles be able to read the fact that a human was suffering a severe medical condition, be able to gain control of the vehicle, notify, say, like OnStar, which seems to be the GPS major thing, and notify that it's having this type of emergency situation, drive the vehicle to the hospital.
But suppose, Ron, that you were in a situation where not all cars were so endowed, let's put it that way, and you met with a real stupid idiot on the road, and you had to make some emergency evasive maneuver that to your vehicle,
if it was only watching for erratic behavior, might regard that emergency whatever, whatever, you know, spinning the car, turning around, doing some weird thing to avoid a crash.
It might regard that as not operating the vehicle properly and not allow it.
So would it judge you in your performance of evasion, or would it at that point take over knowing a human couldn't react quick enough to properly evade and make all the fast decisions for least laws of human life first?
But later on in my life, I actually saved somebody's life when they pulled out in front of me in 1975 across three lanes, saw me too close to avoid hitting them, and slammed on their brakes because they got frightened.
Entirely the wrong thing.
And so I was driving a very heavy 1973 Chevrolet Caprice with bias ply tires.
There was no way I could avoid hitting the driver right in the driver door without some very fast action.
And so because of the instincts that I developed with the acrobatic driving course, I threw the car into a sideways spin so that I was facing the direction that that car was facing.
And just as I was about to hit the car, I gunned the gas, gunned the engine, and spun the car so that it spun 180 degrees.
And what happened is the center of gravity of my car went through his car.
But because of the spin, no part of my car touched his car.
Now, I take it that once all vehicles, virtually all vehicles, were autonomous, that these sorts of things and accident avoidance wouldn't really generally be a problem because they'd all be reacting.
Would they interact with each other?
Now, there's a good one for you.
In other words, wouldn't it be possible, for example, for vehicles within a certain small radius to be in contact with each other with laptop computers and 802.11.
Well, I guess when I said suffer horribly, I meant insurance rates will have to plummet.
I mean, if you think you get a lower insurance rate for an airbag or a seatbelt or something, imagine what you'd get for almost 99.9% accident-free probability.
unidentified
My God, they'd have to drop the rates right into the basement.
And you have an accident rate that means that according to their actuarial tables, they're going to have to pay out an average of $125 over the next five years.
So they're making a $25 a month profit.
Let's just throw that up in the air.
Now, let's say that you put this technology on board, and they can only charge you $30 a month because that's all the market will bear.
But wait, since they're only spending $1 a month in average payouts, they actually are making more money.
I think making more money with less revenue is a good thing.
And it would also, because it's in communications with other vehicles, it would know which routes are clogged and not moving and would be able to choose alternates.
Yeah, I don't see that taking away the fun of driving.
I think it would take away the drudgery of driving.
There are times when if I have to obey the speed limit and I have to go through the construction zones between Los Angeles and or St. Barstow and Las Vegas, which seems to be perpetually under construction, I would just rather tune out.
I mean, why drive that when I could be sitting on my laptop and writing programs or downloading entertainment or viewing the news or something that's far more interesting than I call it the Baker Triangle out there.
I mean, little towns have traditionally received a lot of their income from having their officers sit out there on the edge of town right behind a billboard and just slapping people one after another after another after another.
They'd starve to death.
Because I think your vehicle would observe the speed limit, right?
In fact, one of the things that both the DARPA race and the Open Challenge, the IRRF Open Challenge, do is they have speed limits on certain segments that you won't know about in advance until just before the race.
Well, we know that the BBC, NHK, which is Japan's big network, ABC, CBS, and NBC, and Fox are all going to be covering the DARPA race.
So it's not just like an ASCAR event is really big, but it's covered typically by one channel, and there's a couple of news bites that go to the rest of the places.
This is going to be far larger coverage than that.
You mean could some external force take control of your car, like, say, the police?
unidentified
Well, let's say, oh, there's an area that they, quote unquote, whoever they are, these people that are, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah.
Don't want us in a certain area.
Could these cars be kept out of there?
And the other thing, the part that makes this the scariest to me is the movement of goods.
Ron said it in the beginning.
Our government, which anybody that drives professionally knows that our government really doesn't care anything about our safety, that's, well, enough said about that.
But he said in the very beginning that this was to move medical supplies, medical goods and supplies, okay?
So if this can be done in a car, our government is obviously wanting to do this in trucks.
So now we have a situation where these trucks are transporting goods back and forth across the country.
And if you control the movement of goods, you control everything.
But can't you understand how certain agencies of the government would give their right arm to be able to control all the vehicles one way or the other?
Is it really control if the vehicle chooses to honor the fact that an emergency is occurring in a certain area and drive a different route to avoid that area, especially if it can communicate to its driver why it's doing what it's doing?
Well, each new technology has been a two-edged sword.
For example, in the 70s, a lot of people with the foresight to see the impact that computers would have on people's lives believed that computers would be used by governments to control everybody.
Let's talk about enhancing freedom for a second, Ron.
Right now, we have a lot of young, courageous men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world in war on terror.
Why wouldn't it be incredibly worth our while to have fighting vehicles that could be perhaps sentient, perhaps just very, very intelligent from a machine point of view, either way, smart enough to, without our men and women, who could remain well behind lines, go in and fight wars, robot wars, I don't care, against people.
That never would have happened if they had already been able to perform their mandate to have one-third of their vehicles be autonomous, the supply vehicles.
In order to have this autonomous supply vehicle that you talk about and to have it be effective in a place or a war zone like Iraq, your autonomous vehicle would have to make choices about who to shoot at and kill and maybe even what other vehicle to blow off the face of the earth.
In fact, that's one of the market segments we're looking at.
We're forming an alliance with somebody who already does enhanced mobility controls for vehicles right now as a marketing alliance for what we're planning.
So we see that people who are blind and people who are handicapped literally can have it handled for them.
And that would be great.
Well, that's wonderful because I think just a whole new imagine a whole new level of freedom that can be yours if you're impaired in any way.
You can still do whatever it is that you want that you can't do now.
I think that would be one of the ways that this enhances freedom.
Well, you know, you're the kind of guy who's going to be fun to have back on again because I guess this field is really moving fast, right?
In more ways than one.
And this race that's coming up is going to be at, in other words, it's going to be for these robot vehicles to get from point A to point B, a long distance through, oh, just open land.
And also, we talked about the Racing Federation there in all three of those venues.
And we don't know exactly, but we're in contact with someone at the Nevada Film Commission who said that there's already some movies and documentaries planned to be filmed here in Nevada.
Don't forget, you're going to want to take a moment, and you're going to want to think very hard about your prediction that I'm going to be taking coming up on the 28th or the 31st.
That, you know, that's kind of a big deal every year.
But for tonight, this night anyway, and from the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
Good night.
unidentified
Good night in the desert, shooting stars across the sky.
This magical journey will take us on a ride filled with the longing, searching for the truth.