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Dec. 21, 2003 - Art Bell

02:50:14

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Robotic Technology - Ron Fink

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01:09:21

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59:56

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art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		Here's Thomas.
		Thomas, welcome to the program.
unidentified		Thank you, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I beg your pardon?
unidentified		How are you doing today?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm fine.
		Did you decide to just send this off to me this afternoon?
		It just came to you?
unidentified		Let me tell you what happened.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, please.
unidentified		My brother and his fiancé were visiting here from Sacramento area, California.
unidentified		And you're where in Arizona?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where?
unidentified		I'm sorry, I am in Phoenix, Arizona.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're in Phoenix, all right.
unidentified		Okay.
		And they came for a visit last weekend and had reservations to stay up in the Sedona area.
		And to make a long story short, they came home yesterday back to my house here in Phoenix.
		And in talking to them, his fiancée pulled out this picture that she said she got while they were up there.
		And at first I didn't know what it was about.
		I took a look at it and I said, oh my God.
		You've got to be kidding me.
		This is exciting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's that kind of photograph.
unidentified		I couldn't believe it.
		I said, what is this?
		This is for real?
		And what they told me was that they had rented a plane to fly to the Grand Canyon, a private plane out of Sedona.
		And en route to the Grand Canyon, they had flown over this saucer, laying there on the desert floor.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Check.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They just flew over the saucer.
unidentified		And it pointed it out to them, and they just, you know, their jaws dropped.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The pilot, I mean, what did he say?
		Ladies and gentlemen, to the left side of the aircraft now, you'll see a flying saucer on the ground in the desert.
		What?
unidentified		Yeah.
		Something like that.
		That happens all the time, right?
		And, you know, he told a story about it, and what he told them was that he had been flying another couple up to the Grand Canyon area last July.
		This is a pilot very familiar with the area.
		He has flown over the same route for years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The guy takes people on Grand Canyon tours, folks.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He traverses the same ground all the time.
unidentified		Yeah.
		He has never seen this object before.
		This was in July of this year.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He had never seen it prior to.
unidentified		happened to spot it and point it out to him.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, he had never seen it prior to that.
unidentified		He had never seen it prior to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		That's his story.
unidentified		And so at some other, I'm assuming at some other flight over the area, he had taken more pictures of the craft.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		He obviously got down on deck and took a very close photograph.
		Actually, I mean, all right, so what we seem to have here, folks, I don't know, it's a disc.
		It's a saucer.
		And damned if it doesn't look like the door is open.
unidentified		Doesn't it?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it really does look open.
unidentified		There's no doubt there's a door open there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It does seem to be a door.
unidentified		And if you, I don't know if you're looking at it, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm looking at it.
unidentified		But to the left, on the left-hand side, about 45 degrees from the door, you can see it looks like a couple of pipes sticking out there.
unidentified		I don't know if you noticed that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, wait a minute.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are the pipes?
unidentified		At about, I'm sorry, 90 degrees from...
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do see it.
unidentified		See that?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, yes, I do.
unidentified		I don't know what that is.
unidentified		I don't know if it's a ladder to get up on top of the craft or what it is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, this is a flying saucer on the ground.
		Give me a break.
		It is just a flying saucer on the ground.
		and you know it looks like that i wouldn't exactly call that a road Exactly.
unidentified		It looks like a path through the desert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Something came or went several times.
unidentified		Exactly.
		Yeah.
		And if you look at the saucer, it looks like it's got, you know, heat tiles on it around the circumference.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, it could be heat tiles.
		It does look like heat tiles.
		And then off to the left of the saucer in the desert, there's what appears to be kind of a clear material or something, almost clear material.
unidentified		It looks like it may perhaps have skipped on the ground once.
unidentified		Oh!
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, very good point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's exactly what that is.
unidentified		It looks like it may have skipped once and then landed.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's a burn area there or a...
unidentified		Yeah, you know, that was my thought.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Holy crap, Thomas.
unidentified		And judging just from the road tracks, I'm estimating here, but I'd say it's maybe 45 feet in diameter.
unidentified		I don't know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're judging that based on the width of the path or whatever you want to call it.
unidentified		The multiple tracks coming in.
		Yeah.
		And then putting that across the street.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, maybe that's a good guess.
		That might be a good guess.
		But it's just not every day that somebody sends you a photograph like this, Thomas.
		So you can imagine I sat here and I went, huh.
unidentified		I'm sure your jaw dropped just like mine, David.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It did.
unidentified		I can't believe it when I saw this.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, and I've been doing this stuff for a lot of years.
unidentified		Contact Art Bell with this picture because he's not going to believe this.
		I don't know if you've ever seen it before or seen it like it.
		If this thing's been sitting in the desert since July, I just can't believe that it's never been reported before.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, you mentioned something in your email about this pilot having been grilled, your words, by a variety of, in quotes, agents.
unidentified		Yes, sir.
unidentified		That is what he had told my brother and his fiancée that he had been in black.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did he pass on what they had said or instructed?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, did they say, like, hey, you're not going to be talking about this?
unidentified		Give me art, but this story is all secondhand.
		And so I'm just trying to relate to you what I heard about what happened.
		The pilot apparently has taken another about half a dozen more shots of the craft, and he has them in his possession.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How close is this to Sedona proper?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Any idea?
unidentified		I am, from what my brother has told me, it's somewhere in the area of 50 miles.
unidentified		And I don't know which direction I would assume.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's really out, I assume, is truly out in the middle of essentially nowhere.
unidentified		Exactly.
		I heard very hostile country.
		If it's been laying there since July, it appears that perhaps the craft was too heavy to attempt to move it.
		And the terrain may not have allowed that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, it's funny.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is there any conventional explanation that you could think of offhand, Thomas, for this?
unidentified		Well, I'll tell you what.
unidentified		I did contact Whitney Streever's people as well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Whitley?
unidentified		And sent them a copy of the picture.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What did they say?
unidentified		And I got a reply back from them today suggesting perhaps, and I don't know.
		This is all who knows.
		If I may quote, This could be an experimental disk, they write.
		The U.S. Air Force did quite a bit of this type of experimentation back a few years ago.
		The road leading up to it is well traveled and not of recent construction, suggesting that it could be a structure that has been there for a while.
		And again, it's always possible that it's a genuine unknown.
		And we will see if we can find anything else with a similar shape.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, maybe you found it, Thomas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I sure wish I knew what those, in quotes, agencies said about all of this.
unidentified		I would be as interested as well.
unidentified		I'm telling you, the pilot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course, interviewing the pilot would be a good idea, too.
unidentified		It would be a very good idea.
unidentified		He was very affable and very open about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you have any way of getting me the name or number?
unidentified		My brother just landed.
		I just heard from them about 25 minutes ago.
		And they just got home from leaving this area.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In the meantime, maybe it's a good thing that people don't know exactly where this is right now.
unidentified		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Or after tonight, why they pick it to pieces.
		Man, this is incredible.
		I just, you know, maybe it's one of ours, but I don't remember us making anything like that.
unidentified		Well, if we did, they certainly didn't tell us about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, listen, buddy.
		That's it then.
		That's all you know about this thing, right?
unidentified		As much as I can tell you for now, Art.
unidentified		And if you want to get in contact with me, I'll be happy to share as much information as I can with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you called the right place, Thomas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I'll be in touch.
unidentified		All right.
unidentified		Good night, Doug.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good night.
		Now, there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, but I definitely can't think of one right now.
		Out in the unknown parts of the desert, somewhere outside Sedona.
		Now, the picture again taken by a pilot who was conducting tourists to the Grand Canyon, you know, air tours.
		And he spotted the thing.
		He came in low and took a photograph.
		And that's what you're seeing here.
		And it definitely would, I'd say it definitely would merit investigation from some agency, wouldn't you?
		I mean, no matter what it is, it's nothing normal.
		It sure looks like a saucer with the door open.
		And so there you have it.
		And I thought it would be well worthwhile taking up a few minutes at the beginning of the program.
		Don't blame me if this turns out to have a very conventional explanation, though I can't imagine what it would be.
		It's not my fault.
		But go ahead and take a look at the picture and see what you think.
		Obviously, somebody doing a program like this is not going to turn down a picture like that.
unidentified		Yikes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, news-wise, what's going on?
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Go ahead.
		All right.
		I understand.
		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.
unidentified		This is Coast to Coast AM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't touch that dial.
unidentified		Sweet dreams are made of this.
		Who am I to disagree?
		I travel the world and the seven seas.
		Everybody is looking for something.
		Some of them want to use you.
		Some of them want to use you.
		Don't you need her, Betty?
		Don't you love her, babe?
		Tell me what you say.
		Don't you love her, baby?
		Don't you love her, babe?
		Don't you love her as she's walking out the door?
		Don't you want to know?
		Don't you love her faith?
		What you say, don't you love her as she's walking out the door?
		All your love, all your love, all your love, all your love, all your love is for to sing a lonely song.
		Of a deep blue dream, seven horses seem to be on the mark.
		To talk with Art Bell.
		Call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach ART by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		I mean, we found the real McCoy.
		Just like this.
		Boom.
		There it is.
		Wouldn't that be something?
		Thank you.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The other, of course, possibility is that it is Photoshopped in there.
unidentified		But I don't think so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		All right, first time caller line.
		You are on the air.
		Good evening.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Oh, I didn't know I was going to be on the air.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You didn't.
		Well, what do you think we do here?
		Make hot dogs?
		It's a radio program.
		We're going to have to agree to be on the air.
		I can't put you on the air.
unidentified		I'm with you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You agree in writing to be on the air.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		I just wanted to make sure that you realize that that's absolutely legitimate, and I'll tell you why I know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you talking about the saucer?
unidentified		The saucer.
unidentified		Absolutely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The way you said that, it's like you're from New Jersey.
unidentified		Well, no, I'm at this point in Utah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you originally from?
unidentified		Well, originally I'm from Memphis, Tennessee, way back, but I lived in New York and also.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I knew it.
unidentified		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's how the saucer got there.
		All right.
		So you know this is genuine.
		Now, that's quite a statement to make just based on having seen the photograph.
		I mean, how can you be saying that?
unidentified		Well, I happen to be capable of detecting the frequencies of any kind of material on this Earth and things that are off the Earth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's a serious talent.
unidentified		Yes, that's a good idea.
		How do you do that?
		It's sort of like psychic energy.
		You know what I mean?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ah, and so when you saw this, psychic energy leapt off the screen to you.
unidentified		Right, I can feel it.
		I can take any photograph and I can check it to see if the frequencies are from this world or from other worlds.
		And this photograph is from another world.
		I can even tell if it's been worked on by people from this planet.
		And it hasn't been.
		It has only frequencies of off-planet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's it, huh?
unidentified		That's it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you're not even in doubt.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're just certain.
unidentified		I have no doubt whatsoever.
		Now, if you want to get a little background on who I am, I can give you my website.
		I can do it off air afternoon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's all right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't have anybody to take it off air here, so I'll just.
unidentified		Oh, I see.
unidentified		You're working alone, Villa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I've one-man band.
unidentified		Oh, I didn't know that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, see, there you are.
		Yeah, I run the board and the music and the phone calls and everything.
		All right, thank you very much.
		Well, some talent, huh?
		Well, there's a little authentication for the photograph, folks.
		The frequency's coming off it.
		Should have had them sign it.
		Wildcard line, you're on here.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, Ark.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Oh, I'm from El Paso, Texas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		El Paso.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		El Paso, yes, indeed.
unidentified		My wife and daughter and I, we were amongst about a thousand extras in Roland Emmerich's movie A Day After Tomorrow in April.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We're kidding!
unidentified		Yes, we got to be refugees.
unidentified		We were classified as refugees on foot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You were a refugee in Roland Emmerich's new movie, which is based in part on the coming global superstorm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You were extras, really?
unidentified		Yeah, we heard about it just kind of by accident.
		We went down and applied.
		They actually paid us.
		I got about $350.
		It paid for a scanner I bought.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Way, cool.
		What did you have to do as a refugee?
		Or should you not tell me?
unidentified		Oh, no, it's fine.
unidentified		In fact, have you seen the trailer?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes.
unidentified		We appear briefly for two seconds in the crowd in the trailer on this, in the scene where we have to try to get into Mexico on a bridge.
unidentified		Then another one, we were trying to get across the river.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, television and the movies, they are hard work.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There's no question about it.
unidentified		We had millions here, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm sure.
unidentified		It was a huge refugee camp.
		It was, you know, a half mile on a side.
		They had thousands of, well, hundreds at least, of RVs and cars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		Did you have a very dejected refugee-like-looking face?
		I mean, did you manage that?
unidentified		Sort of.
unidentified		We wore pretty grubby clothes, or I guess it translates just into my regular weekend clothes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right, but you're supposed to look dejected, right?
unidentified		Probably never got that close to our faces.
		I mean, we were part of masses of tired refugees.
		Like, in one scene, we had to carry bags of rice.
		There were supposed to be 50-kilo bags of rice from the U.S. Army truck passing them out.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the trailer is kick butt.
unidentified		Yeah, no question about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's going to be a really good movie.
unidentified		Yeah, we looked at it pixel by pixel, and we think we spotted us there on the bridge.
unidentified		Pixel by pixel, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, rolling, baby, we're depending on you.
		All right, sir.
		Thank you.
		Take care.
		I don't know if you've seen it.
		If you've been to the movies, they're now showing it in the movie theaters, you know, as a tease.
		It is a hell of a trailer for the day after tomorrow.
		Based in part on the coming global superstorm.
		And so, obviously, there'll be much more about that, but we're all very anxiously waiting to see how it's going to turn out.
		East of the Rockies, you're on air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Yeah, how you doing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm doing great, sir.
unidentified		I'm a first-time caller.
unidentified		I'm a bit nervous here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's all right.
		Take a deep breath.
		That's what I learned.
		Big, deep breath.
unidentified		Ah, it's better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
		It is.
		It really is.
		It does work.
		So what's up?
unidentified		Well, I just have a bizarre sighting, I guess you would call it.
		Oh.
		Tonight, coming home from a gig.
		I play music.
		Yes.
		Actually, well, Sunday night the 19th for me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And where are you?
unidentified		I'm in Manassas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and you were coming home from a gig.
unidentified		From a gig, yes, play music.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You go into a kind of a shock is actually what happens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Everything gets suspended for a moment, and you realize you're seeing something.
unidentified		Well, it just didn't look right.
		You know, I look back up, and the impression that I get was as if you're in a planetarium.
		You know, someone's got these lights shining, and they're moving them across the night sky in a planetarium.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Could you judge altitude and by that have a guess at how many other people might have seen this?
unidentified		Oh, man.
		Okay, I'm right over the flight path going into Dulles, and it was maybe that altitude of where the planes are, roughly that speed.
		Maybe higher, though.
		I mean, for all I know, they were way, way up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Then a whole lot of people should have seen.
unidentified		Well, but if they were low and small, I don't know.
unidentified		They look like they might have been roughly at about that altitude that the planes come in on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I guess all I can say is welcome to the great international club of people who've seen stuff.
unidentified		Yeah, it was bizarre.
		When I looked up, I didn't see the beginning of it.
		I saw the end of it.
		And it was anywhere from like 20, 30 on up to, I don't know, but it was this column, you know, and it looked like something out of Mars attacks.
		You know, I mean, it just had that, no, really, this column, this sort of like a column moving across the sky, silently, slowly, and then it was gone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I don't know what to tell you, except welcome.
		I mean, that's it.
		I can say welcome to the club.
		And half, more than half of Americans have seen things they cannot explain in our skies.
		And I'm one of them, so welcome.
		You know, that's worth a little bit of thought when you consider that most people don't look at the sky very much.
		And for that many people to have seen UFOs makes it a subject well worthy of investigation.
		Hell, maybe we got one here on the ground in Sedona.
		What is that thing?
		Anyway, West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
unidentified		Hello.
unidentified		Hello, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, hi.
unidentified		Yeah, well, here's a popular explanation for you.
		My name's Adam.
		I'm from Littleton, Colorado.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yo, Adam.
unidentified		You have swamp gas out there in the desert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that's swamp gas?
unidentified		Well, you know, when you...
		That's right.
		When you look at the way the government's treated us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		One other thing, it's near Sedona, which is in the middle of the desert.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, but you have seen the picture, honestly.
unidentified		I haven't seen the picture.
unidentified		I'm being, you know, sarcastic.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You haven't seen it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, geez.
unidentified		Of course it's not swamp gas, but the government's going to tell you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm just being sarcastic.
		I got you.
		Well, I suggest you go take a look at this picture before somebody explains it, because you might think it's Mars a tax or something.
		If you were to just first see it, you're going to go UFO.
		Now, further investigation may show many things, and or it may be explained in one of many conventional ways, and I want to stress that.
		But, I mean, first blush, there it is, folks, a saucer in the middle of the damn desert, just with nothing around.
		In a place where, well, everybody could have missed it.
		Ah, the possibilities.
		First time caller line, you're on air.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hello.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hi.
unidentified		This is Larry.
unidentified		I'm calling from Oklahoma.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		On a cell phone, too, at that, huh, Larry?
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yep.
unidentified		Yeah.
unidentified		And listening off of a Tulsa radio station.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Tulsa, okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so what's up?
unidentified		Well, I have an answer to a question which comes up just about every night on your program.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow, that's frequent.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is it?
unidentified		The question is, is who are they?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who are they?
unidentified		where I was referring to they.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and the answer is?
		Okay, go ahead and give us the answers.
		Who are they?
unidentified		Okay, and I'll just say I know who they are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I know you already said that, so tell us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Who are they?
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		It's the cabal of families.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A cabal of families.
		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.
		You should have known that.
		But he had a whole bunch of family names ready.
		We're not going to air that.
		Especially after we've called them they.
		So you all will have to continue to wonder.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air.
		Hello.
unidentified		Hi, let's not call it us and them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, turn your radio off first, and then I'll turn the radio off.
		Thank you.
		So you think it's a collective we, huh?
unidentified		Pretty much.
unidentified		When I say collective we, I think.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, no, no.
		Hold it.
		Hold it.
		Turn your radio off.
unidentified		All right, granted.
unidentified		Second chance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll turn it off to the best of my ability.
		Well, your ability is going to have to get better.
		Turn it all the way off.
		Or I'll have to leave the line.
unidentified		I'm turning off all the circuits.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, east of the Rockies, you would have been on the air.
		West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
		Good morning.
unidentified		Yeah, I have a fantastic sighting that I've never been able to report to either Peter Davenport or Art Bill.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I am.
		This is Art.
		You've got me.
		So if you've got a good one, let her loose.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		I'm on now?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		Oh, okay.
		I had an experience about two years ago in August, September, somewhere around that range, of a UFO sighting in Fresno, California.
		There was a teacher that apparently saw this on the air.
		It was aired on TV as well.
		It just happened at 4.20 in the morning.
		I saw literally a 40-minute show from 4.20 to 5 o'clock.
		And they had lights going around it.
		It looked like it had been a Triangler type of ship.
		I stood out there.
		It was amazing.
		I ran out in the street where there was more street where it could have seen me.
		It was about six miles southeast of me.
		And I'm in central Fresno.
		I jumped up down, waved my arms, thinking that how would it ever see me at that distance?
		But it did.
		It came forward towards me.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You think it responded to you?
unidentified		Pardon?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You think so?
unidentified		It did.
		It did respond.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you by yourself?
unidentified		Yeah, I was by myself.
		It was 4.20 in the morning.
		It was a very clear night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So clearly, you think you saw a craft from another world?
unidentified		I don't know if it was experimental.
		I don't know if it was from another world, but I'll tell you what, that's good answer.
		I've never seen anything from this planet do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, that's a good answer.
		It's the same one I gave.
		I saw a triangular craft very, very throw a rock kind of close, you know.
		No question about what it was, but at the end of it, I said, yep, it could have been one of ours.
unidentified		Yeah, well, this thing was octagon, though.
unidentified		It was actually octagon.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I could see it very slowly.
		How would you describe its movements?
		Was it flying or was it floating?
unidentified		You know, the thing is, there was no sound at all.
		And it was just like, it was just, it was just setting up there for the longest time.
		I had a 40-minute show, literally.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I saw that show.
unidentified		And it was setting there mostly in one spot.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hovering.
unidentified		Yeah, just like hovering.
		And there was no sound to it.
		And when it moved, it just moved real, you know, like any, it came forward, you know, right straight at me, and then it came back.
		It went back.
		I got kind of like, you know, terrorist when it started coming close to me.
		I started looking at my front door like, man, I want to go in the house.
		I don't want, you know, I don't want, I had, I have jury duty, you know, next week.
		And I sure as hell didn't want to get taken up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe we're beginning to have a pretty good-sized flap.
		I mean, I'm getting all these reports.
		I've got a photograph of something here on the ground.
unidentified		Well, this is two years ago, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		This is two years ago around in August.
		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.
		And that's why I was up so late.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you still sound every bit as excited as I bet you were when you saw it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you could see very excited about it.
unidentified		I did.
		I left word with Peter Dab for him.
		He never returned any call on it, though.
		But it was interesting.
		It was quite a sight to see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know what to say about it, except like I did to the earlier fellow who had a really good report.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Welcome to the club.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The ever-growing club.
		There's no question about the club growing.
		Thank you very much.
unidentified		Sure thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the club really is growing.
unidentified		There's something going on out there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East to the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From West to the Rockies, call ART at 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country spread access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is indeed, and I don't think anybody knows what that saucer is.
		Let me read you some of the responses I'm getting.
		Fast Blasted, Jimmy, Jack, and Tucson.
		These are all in a row.
		In Tucson, Arizona says, hey, Art, the saucer-like object outside the dome is actually a storage container for cattle feed.
		Nice try.
		French fry.
		Cheers.
		J-A-C.
		Or Ray in Dorville, Georgia.
		I know for sure the photo of the saucer is a cover to an airplane wheel.
		The cover looks bigger than it really is.
		It's from an old biplane.
		My dad worked with him.
		Then Ray in Dorville.
		That's the same Ray, I guess.
		Sorry, same message.
		Don says, Renton, Washington, they are DS-8.
		This came out on a recent sci-fi special.
		So everybody thinks it's everything.
		And nobody knows for sure, apparently, what it is.
		Lots of good guesses, though.
		It'll be interesting As time goes on, to see if it's a Photoshop special or who knows.
		But I mean, there it is out in the middle of nowhere.
		Have your own go at it.
		Be my guest.
		All right, coming up in a moment.
unidentified		Ron Mad Max Fink.
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.
unidentified		Mad Max in a moment.
unidentified		Mad Max in a moment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Let's see.
		Frank in San Diego says, fake picture shadow of the saucer is a dead giveaway when you blow it way up.
		Or Mike in Anchorage, Alaska says, think it might be a really good tabletop model, top scale.
		Look at the lower right.
unidentified		It doesn't quite look real.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anyway, I hope I'm wrong, and it's real.
		So that's the kind of response we're getting to the photograph.
		You know, who knows?
		I mean, you throw it up there, and eventually one of the saucers will stick.
		All right.
		Is it Ron or Ron Fink or Mad Max?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, some of my friends call me Trace.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Trace, really?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, short for Trace Huebos.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I kind of like, I lean toward Mad Max.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Says something about you, I guess, doesn't it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What does it say about you, actually?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The bottom line is that I've always been willing to take on the projects that nobody else thought was possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		You're into robotics, am I right?
		All right, then.
		I'm going to ask you the standard question that I ask of all robot-type people.
		And I don't get very many, by the way.
		People love robotics, artificial intelligence, that kind of thing.
		All right.
		Here it is.
		Just bear with me.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
		It would be the land of milk, honey, and gears.
		It would just be wonderful.
		Robots would be everywhere.
		It hadn't happened yet.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, a lot of people react to the same marketing the exact opposite way.
		They think that it's going to be like Skynet and Matrix.
		So I guess there's a few different views about what robotics will bring.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we were sort of promised that.
		And it just didn't happen.
		Now, I understand there have been recent great strides in robotics.
		Did you happen to see the Sony robot, the new Sony?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm familiar with the AIBO.
		They have a new one.
		I haven't seen it yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, that's really cool.
		CNN had it.
		The articulation on it is unbelievable.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They're getting really good.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, they really are getting good, but it should have happened by now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, truly, all the drudgery work, you still got to do it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And it's true.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So we haven't, it's not the land of milk and honey yet, but what kind of robotics are you involved in?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, currently, what we are trying to do is build an automobile that can pilot itself entirely.
		It understands roads.
		It understands people and other vehicles.
		It understands about signs.
		It understands about barbed wire fences and down power lines and anything else you can think of.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would be able to navigate under those conditions?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm glad you asked.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		First, let me give you a little background.
unidentified		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is a division of Department of Defense, the DOD.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, they're the folks who are funding, among other things, HARP.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So what about DARPA?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, DARPA has been funding research into autonomous vehicles since about 1990.
unidentified		Figures.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They've been mandated by Congress to have one-third of all ground supply-line vehicles be autonomous by the year 2015.
		And so they started letting out projects and research grants and so forth.
		And almost $2 billion into it.
		They don't have results yet.
		And so Congress authorized them to issue.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What exactly is it they want again, please?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, you see, they need some of their ground vehicles to be autonomous so that they can go into war-torn areas early with medicines and supplies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Makes sense, sure.
unidentified		Right, sure.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		This was really brought to the front, you know, in some of the recent wars, especially.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah, you're making a very good point.
		I mean, the ground assault on Baghdad, I recall as if it were yesterday.
		You know, they had the cameras on board the tanks and everything, and by God, there were humans everywhere.
		And you do wonder in this day and age, why, for example, would a human have to be in a tank necessarily.
		Why couldn't there be a guy operating it from, oh, I don't know, suburban Washington, D.C. with a joystick, you know, and a monitor in front of him?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, well, we're going to take that one step further.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're going to let these vehicles have enough brains so that it can actually take care of themselves.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, repair themselves.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		More than that.
unidentified		More!
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Guide themselves, completely, autonomously conduct their business that they've been assigned to conduct and know their way around by sight.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		This is going to be quite an achievement.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about the possibility of Christine?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You remember Christine?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I remember Christine.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The runaway crazy car that you can do.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I remember that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so what would happen if one of your vehicles lost its artificial intelligence?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We are hoping that we can build in ethics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ethics?
unidentified		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Have you read the robotics, the three laws of robotics?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Remind me of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not to hurt humans, that's one, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Science fiction great Isaac Asimov incorporated the three laws of robotics in all of his robotic stories.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And I can't remember the three right off the top of my head.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I know one's not to hurt human beings.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Thou shalt not harm a human being.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And then the next one was, by inaction, you shall not cause a human being to come into harm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, same thing.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay, all right, and I think the last one was Stop on that one.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Did you say by inaction you are not to see harm?
		So in other words, if the robot could in any way prevent harm to a human, whatever other instruction it might have, it would have to do that.
		Gotcha.
		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So basically what we're structuring that as is ethics.
		And we actually have ethics built into the very lowest levels of the machine.
		So there are certain things that it can't do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, now how do you do that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I suppose it's a software kind of challenge, really, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It is.
		Well, hardware, too.
		I mean, we've got 20, 64-bit processors in a huge, you know, massively parallel array with more than 20 gigabytes of RAM.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow, a lot of RAM.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
		And huge terabytes of disk space in order to pull this off.
		And then we've had to invent some new technologies for scanning the globe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		Well, slow way down.
		Now, we're not all programmers.
		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let me try that.
		Okay.
		With any computer system, there are levels of programming.
		For example, we deal with a user interface, which is a level of programming that most people refer to as layer 7 in the ISO standards.
		There's a whole bunch of layers and down to layer 1, which is the kernel that deals directly with the CPU kind of thing.
		So each of these layers controls different levels of activity in the computer's brain.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So if this vehicle had a large gun on the front of it, let's say?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As a military vehicle, probably, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're hoping to obviously do more peaceful uses, like if we're not.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you don't really have any illusions about DARPA, do you?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what they're doing?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Their stated purpose is to provide medicines and supplies to people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yes, yes, yes.
		Do you buy that wholly?
		I mean, DARPA is a...
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I understand that.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		But they're also the people who brought us information.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The war is on their mind, sir.
		Well, yes, perhaps they did bring us the Internet.
		I don't know.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, it used to be the ARPANET.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And it was put into the public domain and became the Internet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But surely you must have some reservation since it is DARPA.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, the reason we bring up DARPA in the first place is because it is their contest that started off a long series of events.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, but let's look at that for a second.
		Why do you think DARPA is having that contest?
		It's so they can get a vehicle that will operate itself.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So they can do what with it?
		Take personnel on picnics?
		Answer, probably not.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The stated purpose is to deliver medicines and supplies.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So this is, you know, and to save people's lives.
		The example they give is a war-torn area that needs supplies desperately.
		We can't bring the supplies in because the area is so unstable.
		Days or weeks go by and people die.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Give me an example of an ethical judgment this vehicle might be required to make.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		In a civilian setting, it detects that its driver is impaired.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, so it has a driver?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we can assume that it could in a commercial, in a civilian.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It decides the driver is impaired with like a 0.2 God knows what, right?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Totally.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Something like that, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Inebriated, sleepy, sleepy talking on his cell phone.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, and then once it decides we've got an out-of-control driver on our hands.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay, now it can talk to the driver and tell it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Tell the driver, him or her.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hey, bud, you seem a little impaired to me in here.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're going to go off the next exit ramp and we're going to call a cab.
		Or let me take over from here.
		Okay.
		That's an example.
		It's a little far off right now, but we're hoping to bring that into it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, I'll tell you, if my car let loose on me like that.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		You wouldn't like it much, huh?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's incredible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if necessary, it would grab control, seize control from the impaired driver.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let's say the impaired driver is about to cause an accident.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		This is excellent, yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The impaired driver is about to cause an accident which the computer calculates would harm or destroy people's lives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That law of robotics immediately takes over.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And the car prevents the driver from causing the accident.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Stop stupid drivers in their tracks.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It takes enough control of the vehicle to prevent the accident from occurring.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Too good to be true.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Or in the event that the accident cannot be prevented, it will actually make choices to minimize the effects of the accident.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do understand.
		All right.
		Would the vehicle, in your opinion, opt to protect its own passenger and that life above and beyond the life of the people it's about to broadside?
		How ethically would it make that choice?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's an excellent question.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, since the guy owns it, since it's his artificial intelligence, why not have it opt ethically or would that be unethical?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you know, you could be headed toward a car full of little tiny kitties and puppies and stuff.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We actually have a, all of our people are on this particular committee.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We have a ethics committee.
unidentified		also so these kinds of questions are brave yes got uh...
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		what would happen here For example, the ones that it is charged to protect are more valuable than the ones that are bum that I'm carrying right now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How about that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		See, now there's a good question.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Now, obviously, we hope that it can always mitigate the accident in such a way that nobody's lives are in danger.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure that would be first on the list.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But if it was thee or me.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We don't have that answer yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		we're working these are things that your That's really something.
unidentified		All right.
unidentified		Hold on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Darfa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hold on.
unidentified		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Just weapons and food.
		Did I say weapons?
		Medicine and food, right?
		We'll be right back.
unidentified		Find out more about tonight's guest.
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art bell ▲ ● ▼		You can just tell this is going to be fun.
		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?
		Holy mackerel, more in a moment.
unidentified		Holy mackerel, more in a moment.
unidentified		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, there were 106 teams.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		There were 106.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And DARPA, because they were completely overwhelmed, I think they were expecting half a dozen or so, began trimming the field.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, and how did they do that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, a number of ways.
		The first one was with technical papers, and we survived that cut.
		It went from 106 to 45.
		And then they decided that they needed to cut the field more.
		They were going to allow 25 at the QID, which is their qualification run.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And so they decided to have site visits.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And the site visits.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You mean DARPA inspectors?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		A team of four DARPA inspectors came to our place.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No kidding.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That must have been unnerving.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It was interesting, to say the least.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what were they looking for and at?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, serious stuff.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No, we did not survive the last cut.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I was informed today that we are not going to be in the DARPA challenge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what is it that keeps you from the Great Challenge?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's really something.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you could end up perhaps working with some other group they end up picking.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, a lot of people view this as, okay, the world is saved from DARPA having our technology.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And some other people, you know, have different points of view.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How will you now proceed?
		I mean, you still may get, based on what they said, then, you may get a call from them to be writing the software for somebody else's winning entry.
		I mean, who knows?
		So you can always imagine...
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think we'll burn that bridge when we come...
		Cross that bridge when we come to it.
		I think that where we really need to go now is what we did in the meantime.
		Because that actually constitutes a rule change from DARPA.
		They didn't do what they said they were going to do.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In what respect?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		When, in fact, they wanted groups to be far more along than that stage.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They wanted physical reality or what?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, in this case, no.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They just had too many people, so they had to trim the field.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I understand, but I mean, the qualifier then must have been some sort of physical reality, something beyond.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		For example, we were still seeking our automobile sponsor when DARPA came to visit a couple of weeks ago.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And are you now still seeking your automobile sponsor?
		Yes.
		Tell me more.
		Let's talk more about the automobile.
		I mean, we would make choices.
		It would potentially even seize control from you, call a taxi for you.
		What other things would a really smart, I mean, they like to call today's cars smart, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They haven't got a clue.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They haven't got a clue.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So a really smart car would do what else?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, a really smart car can recognize where it is by dead reckoning as well as through GPS.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I want to stop you right there.
		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's the point of the challenge.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you know much about the other teams?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, a little bit.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A little bit.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let me tell you why.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Were you in touch with any of the other teams?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And the teams needed a venue.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Many of them lost sponsors they had already gotten because DARPA had put them in the questionable status, the questionable category.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that was the last straw for the sponsors.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		See, Ron, you know what you should have done on your model on paper?
		You should have had a big damn gun on it.
		If you had a big gun on it, Ron, you'd be in.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		There you go.
unidentified		Just a big monster gun.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, what we did instead was we started the International Robot Racing Federation.
		And that event is happening in September of 2004.
		And so many of the teams that were applying and were dissed by DARPA are going to be in that race.
		And the race is going to be tougher and even more autonomous.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can I ask you about something?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I've got this little MPEG video that's one of the funnier damn things I ever saw in my whole life.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it shows two robots that are about to fight, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the one robot looks like it's about to get murdered by the other robot.
		And the other robot just stands there waiting to be slaughtered.
		At the last second, it opens its little doors, and there's this popular beer.
		The other robot freaks out, grabs the beer, robot one, smashes the other robot into 50 million pieces.
		It's the funniest thing you ever saw.
		Have you seen that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No, I haven't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No, you haven't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'll get your email address and send it to you, Ron.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I love it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's funny.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		So have you done any of that kind of stuff?
		I know they actually have, you know, like cockfights, only they use robots.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, the robot wars, I actually have been staying out of because I felt more like they were remote control wars.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I didn't see anything autonomous about the ones that I saw.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		True enough, but still, articulation and killing ability.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Stuff like that really counts.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Still, with somebody standing in a nearby place with a joystick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, so in your case, though, you could come up with an independent warrior, couldn't you?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I could.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Nobody has to stand anywhere with a joystick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It just goes beats the hell out of the other.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's true.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We could go there, but we have chosen not to go there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Imagine their fright when they realized you didn't even have a joystick.
unidentified		All you did was set yours loose.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, the Japanese have a little bit of a lead on us robotically, don't they?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, they do.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		But, you know, we have that good old American ingenuity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can we circle back to my question now?
		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, it needs better sensors than just GPS.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		GPS is just literally not good enough for this kind of thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So we've developed vision systems that are ultra-dense, ultra-high resolution, and ultra-fast.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Meaning it can see.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It can see.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It can see in 360 degrees at all times.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In just normal vision or night vision or in spectral vision of some sort or what?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		In normal vision and in infrared, and it uses the infrared also to help detect what kind of object it's looking at.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		For example, it can tell a very flat road from water.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it can literally see more of a spectrum than the human eye.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And it can see it faster than the human eye can see it.
		And it can see it at about the same resolution.
		We're also integrating what some people call LIDAR.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What's LIDAR?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		LiDAR is a scanning laser system that can pinpoint distances within a centimeter.
		And it's a backup system which actually verifies the stereo vision's perception of how far away something is.
		So humans can guess, well, you know, I think that's about 50 feet away.
		And in their mind, they have this mental image about how much longer they can go before they have to turn.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, that just seems like almost kids' play compared to what you're doing.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think so, yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so do I. That's why we need the hugely parallel systems with.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, then what the hell is the matter with DARPA?
		They should be looking at it the same way.
		Translation into mechanical reality is nothing compared to the ability to write the software to operate it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I believe they think that the teams that they picked are the best qualified.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Should have had a big gun, Ron.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm telling you.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Should have had a big gun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Anyway, so then what about all the normal other stuff in a car?
		Doors, windows, temperature control, I don't know, entertainment.
		In your car, for example, you could just, I assume, get in, tell it where to go, and then watch your favorite TV show or something?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
		So you could say something like...
unidentified		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Too cool.
		Oh, my.
		You know, a lot of people, I'm sure, are wondering why this hasn't been done yet.
		I mean, these ideas really are good ideas.
		They really are.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They're being done.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because we have, what, 50,000-plus people who are killed on the highways every year, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now, what would this do to that number?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're hoping to cut it by two-thirds.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Two-thirds.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Within 15 years.
unidentified		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You should be getting sponsorship from Chevrolet or Ford.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're working on that.
		In fact, we're in discussions with Ford right now.
		They're hesitating right now because of the fact that we didn't get into the DARPA race.
		And so now we have to show them that the September race will be even better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Actually, how long have you been working on the attempt to get into DARPA?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We learned about the DARPA race in September.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So this comes as crushing news, literally, just as you're about to go on the air, huh?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, not crushing.
		Because actually, to us, it's a project management situation.
		And in project management, the order of the day, if you're a good project manager, is to always handle the high-risk items first.
		And the moment that DARPA began changing the rules in order to narrow down the field, we realized that we were at risk.
		And also, there were a whole lot of other teams that realized that they were at risk.
		So we led the charge to form the International Robot Racing Federation.
		We have some marketing people on board.
		It's going to be a fabulous event in Nevada.
		It's going to be a 300-mile race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Here in Nevada?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
		A 300-mile.
		Now it's going to be a race.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Is it that important for robots to have speed?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The speed shows that they're actually capable of reasoning at a rate that makes them a viable alternative.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		If they can't reason fast enough to handle a race, then they're not fast enough to go into the commercial race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And what kind of venue would this race be conducted on?
		Certainly not the highways of Nevada.
		Or is it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we are negotiating with cities.
		Las Vegas is among them.
		And we are going to begin and end in Las Vegas probably.
		And we are negotiating for the right road blockages and the police and so forth like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Don't you think the authorities would be concerned?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, sure, you know, just send this robot troop down Interstate 15.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We have.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Isn't that going to be hard to get permission for?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		There's a device that's known in the industry as an e-stop box.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It's basically a black box that you have to hook into your vehicle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And you don't have control over the black box.
		The people who are hosting the event have control over the black box.
		And if you go out of range or out of line of sight, or if your vehicle misbehaves in any way that is outside the rules.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Becomes Christine-like at all.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Right.
		Then it is immediately shut down.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would for me if I looked over and, good lord, there's no one in there.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The intent is not to have it anywhere near regular drivers.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you'd have to have cleared roads and a clear path.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And it's not going to be just roads.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		A lot of it, most of it, in fact, is going to be off-road.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Because that's where the true obstacles are.
		That's where you're going to find the down trees, the water hazards, the ruts, the rocks.
		Oh, yes.
		The barbed wire fences.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I can't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So these robots, then, are going to be All-terrain kind of bots.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They're going to be driving typically a four-wheel drive vehicle or one of those little quads.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		What do they call this?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That sounds like it's going to be so much fun.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It's going to be a blast.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ron, Mad Max Fink.
unidentified		Hold on.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll get right back to you.
		Yeah.
		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.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from east of the Rockies, call toll-free 800-825-5033.
		From west of the Rockies, call 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach ART by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It certainly is.
		And I just tried to send that MPEG to Ron, who'd really get a kick out of it, and my ISP rejected it as spam.
		It thinks it's spam, you see?
		It's a robot that is not that intelligent because it's not spam.
		It happens to be very funny, but the ISP thinks it's spam.
unidentified		Hmm.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Filtering for me.
		That's what robots can do for you.
		We'll get back to Ron Mad Max Fink in a moment.
unidentified		Stay right there.
unidentified		All right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're getting there.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's what the purpose of the challenge is for.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The concept is that when Let me try and reset this.
		All right, you got it.
		I think that's better.
		Get good and close to that phone.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right on.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think it's now permanently ensconced somewhere in my mouth.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		All right.
		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That sounds like an awful lot of fun.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you'd want to kind of lay your design heavily into that area.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		In fact, we do.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I actually live here in Las Vegas on South Africa.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So you don't fully understand what it's like here, then.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And three blocks from me is some really rugged mountain desert.
		Yep.
		And that's where we test.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ah, the perfect test ground.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And so you're actually to that testing stage.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're testing subsystems mounted on our own vehicles at this point.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're using your own vehicles.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		So we're mounting camera arrays and driving them and analyzing the results.
		And we're running that camera array into the decision process of the computer system and having the computer system make choices.
		And the more data we can feed it, the faster it learns.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Have you told your insurance company you're doing this?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The insurance company said that they won't insure us if we enter one of the vehicles in a race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, what a surprise.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But, I mean, what about testing?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		You know, they didn't say anything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They didn't mention anything about the testing phase.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So we'll see what they say now that they're going to hear this radio show.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		If I get a call tomorrow, we'll know.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry if you do.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Whether or not the insurance company listens to Art Bell.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Maybe at that point we'll have to seek an insurance company sponsor for the radio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Yes.
		Well, okay.
		I'm going to presume then that you're covered until you get that worrisome call.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's correct.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Interesting.
		And so you're using your own car.
		What kind of cars are you using?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I used my ex-wife's Suburban.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ex-Wives' cars are good to use.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
		And actually, we have an old 57 Pontiac that has grill work that looks a lot like Christine.
		We also have three dune buggies.
		They are discerning the distance of everything.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And they're turning that into an XYZ point field.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
		In other words which directions it's traveling.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And also its rotational vectors.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What does it do, by the way, if it decides it's out of control?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well it has control over the direct control over the ABS systems and over the air-fuel mixtures of the vehicle.
		It interfaces directly with the vehicle's computer and or with its electronics.
		And so or in the case of the Dune buggies with electromechanical things that control the brake, gas, and the shift levers.
		And so it decides which wheel to apply braking power to and which vehicle to apply a little bit more power to and it handles that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Now how are you guys testing?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Right now, every one of our tests has somebody behind the wheel.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So we're not yet to the point, and that's probably one of the reasons why DARPA was unsure whether we could make the March deadline.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We're not at that point yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not yet.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		we are supposed to be according to the project plan at that point on february 14th and there was uh...
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No, I don't agree with DARPA on that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, you don't?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm one of the reasons they call me Mad Max.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I take on impossible projects and I bring them in on time.
		You could have done it.
		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Stupid DARPA.
		Should have done it.
		All right, well, so are you going to go ahead and do it anyway?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, we are, because we have to do it anyway for the IRRF race, which we think will be a better event anyway.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It's far more media-friendly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The IRRF race?
unidentified		Yes, yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's the International Robot Racing Federation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sorry, I'm not up on this stuff.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It's okay.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The International Robot Racing Federation.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And that's at iRRF.org.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		If anybody wants to learn more about that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I'm sure they will.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think they would get there eventually, but eventually could be five or ten or even twenty years.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They're not actively working on it now, do you know why?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		On an autonomous vehicle?
		I don't think so.
		And the reason would be is because it's too far out.
		And that's, I think, the genius behind DARPA's decision to turn this into a contest.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The answer really is, it's not too far out.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		know.
		As for people who are out It doesn't seem like it ought to be that far out.
		We have all kinds of sensing technology.
		We have geniuses like you at writing software, and that's all it is, is a chain of decisions, right?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it can be viewed that way.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		This, however, probably is orders of magnitude, I think, over.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Beyond.
		Yeah, I simplified it.
		I understand that.
		But still, it's an artifact or an ability of artificial intelligence.
		It's a long, hard road, but one that we might be at the door of right now, not 10 years from now.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, a lot of lives.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Two-thirds of that 50,000 plus that are killed on our highways.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I have a personal story with regard to that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		If you've got time.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I do.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I have a nephew who died a couple of years ago in 2001 in a tragic accident with a piece of large industrial, a tractor, basically.
unidentified		Oh, I'm sorry.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And he was crushed to death, and it was horrible.
		And it could have been avoided, but there was time pressures and things like that.
		And with our technology on board, that accident could not have happened.
		It would not have been a possible thing.
		The computer would not have allowed the tractor to do whatever it did.
		That killed my nephew.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's a strong motivation for you.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it is.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's an admirable thing you're doing.
		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.
		It's not that far away, is it?
		You've got to do it pretty quick.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm used to doing things very quickly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Are you?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, so will your vehicle do all you said you described, or what part of it will it do?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are the chances of that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We intend to make the course challenging enough that there is a chance that nobody could win.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That nobody could win.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		See, DARPA's putting up a million dollars for a challenge that they fully expect that maybe nobody will be able to complete.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What kind of obstacles do you imagine and then obviously try to plan for in your programming that might be so impossible?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we know that DARPA is planning to make us go along railroad sidings and be able to navigate those ourselves.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And they are not giving the actual waypoints of the course.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, for example, you send it under, into a tunnel where GPS couldn't get.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Or in a canyon, a narrow canyon.
		And so there will be lots of places where GPS will be dead.
		There are places where we have to navigate roads.
		And the roads may or may not have lanes, for example, but we still have to stay in the lane.
		And we have to do that by recognizing where the right edge of the road is.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's asking a lot, particularly being out of GPS range.
		This is really something.
		Okay, well, robots, and they're getting ready for one that they're going to put in a race.
		Eventually, what DARPA wants is an autonomous vehicle.
		What they want it for, I guess we'll have to leave to your imagination.
		From the high desert, you're listening.
		Coast to coast AM roaring itself through a dark Sunday night Monday morning.
		I'm Art Bell.
unidentified		I'm Art Bell.
		Lead me this way.
		I can't survive.
		I can't stay alive without your love.
		Oh, baby.
		What?
		To my surprise, a little Nash Rambler was following me about one-third my size.
		The guy must have wanted to pass me out as he kept untooting his horn.
		I'll show him that a cat is not a car to scorn.
		Beep, beep, beep.
		Beep, beep.
		To talk with Art Bell, call the wildcard line at area code 775-727-1295.
		The first-time caller line is area code 775-727-1222.
		To talk with Art Bell from East of the Rockies, call toll-free at 800-825-5033.
		From west of the Rockies, call ART at 800-618-8255.
		International callers may reach Art Bell by calling your in-country sprint access number, pressing option 5, and dialing toll-free 800-893-0903.
		From coast to coast and worldwide on the internet, this is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Indeed, and I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
unidentified		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?
		Can I get this car out of second gear?
		Can I get this car out of second gear?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, all right.
		Here's the thing, Ron.
		Most of the time, my wife and I drive a little geometro around town.
		You know, it gets great gas mileage, little car, and it's just a great little car.
		And that's what we drive.
		But I must tell you, Ron, I have in my garage my Firebird Trans Am.
		See, so every now and then, Ron, I take it out and have fun.
		You know what I mean?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I completely understand.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You know, we hit one of the highways around here.
		We're both living here in Nevada, same state, you know, with the highways.
		Now, it seems like a vehicle of the sort you've described would hate people wanting to have fun.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I completely disagree.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You do?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I just hate people having fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, because I'm not saying it's exactly a.
		Well, yes, it is.
		Because some fun is inherently dangerous.
		I mean, seeing if you can do 130 miles an hour is fun on the one hand, but potentially and possibly dangerous, certainly on the other.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's why we need something that can process at racing speeds because it can understand whether or not you're in control.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And in fact, help stay in control if you hit that curve.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		No?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It would definitely know whether or not you could handle that corner at 120 and decide whether or not to let the car continue.
		You always have the option, I'm sure, of disengaging it since you own the car.
		But in our case, we don't equate a speed limit as a limit of safety.
unidentified		Oh.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So that's interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's interesting.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Our job is not to enforce speed police.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, for you.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Our job is just to keep the vehicle and its passengers safe.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I like it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So if it's safe to go 135 or 165, then I don't see any reason why not.
		Well, I have some toys, too.
		I had to sell them to finance this project, unfortunately.
		But I intend to buy a few toys back when we're done.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's your dream.
		You've got to pursue your dream, and that's how people make millions, Ron.
		There's no question about it.
		You do something like this, and the world opens for you.
		Sometimes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We've already had to develop three technologies that we have patents pending on just to enter the race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, can you talk about them?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, very briefly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We have a new mapping technology.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		You may be familiar with airplanes that fly over an area and they do altitude LIDAR scans.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We can do that with 1,000 times the resolution.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And not only that, but when that plane lands, it has a bunch of data that it has to convert into XYZ point data.
		And the post-processing can take weeks or months.
		We can do it in real time so that when the plane lands, it has 1,000 times the resolution and it has it right now.
		So that's a technology that we've developed.
		And we're applying for the patents.
		And we are in negotiations with an entire country in Africa to actually map that country for them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I can't say the name, and I can't.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
		Wouldn't your concept have some kind of application perhaps to, for example, NASA?
		Now, they're about to land these robots on Mars.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it seems to me a lot of what you're talking about would be integrated or could be integrated in one of those vehicles.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We are planning to propose that.
		We're also in contact with JPL and Caltech about actually running a scan in relation to something else that they're doing.
		And I'm not at liberty to say.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ooh, you're involved in quite a few gray things, aren't you?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't think this is gray.
		It's just that when you're in negotiations with somebody, you don't want to tell the world as if it's an accomplished thing.
		True enough.
		So it's not necessarily gray, but these people are very interested in testing our technology to see if it works.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But you can't tell me the name of the guy who called you back from DARPA.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I can't.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That was not an authorized phone call.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I've got it.
		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 you just might be working for our governments.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're not allowed to have your vehicle in any way sabotage that of another team.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Exactly.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder how they actually measure that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, is DARPA going to have teams out there following these individual vehicles, documenting their performance?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, actually.
		They're doing this in cooperation with SCORE, which is the Southern California Off-Road Racing Enthusiasts.
		It's quite a, I don't even know if I got the acronym right, but it's a very venerable and respected off-road vehicle association.
		And they do a lot of, they're involved in a lot of off-road events, and they have a lot of experience.
		And those people, SCORE is setting up chase vehicles that will be manned by one SCORE person and one person from DARPA.
		And they will stay within range of their particular subject vehicle.
		And if the vehicle gets out of range, then the E-Stop will go into effect and stop the vehicle until they can catch up.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And I hope they raise them through Perump.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That would be fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, we'd be a good area for that.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		DARPA is not going to do that.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		But we are actually in negotiations with a number of cities surrounding Las Vegas to see if they will allow us to do that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Perrump would be a natural.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Prump is one of them.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You betcha.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Here we are.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And we are definitely going to approach them as one of the cities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Why not?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Now, because I'm also fielding an entry, I'm actually not one of the people that will know the route before it happens.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The route will remain a secret.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That wouldn't be fair, would it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So I won't know until everybody else knows exactly what the route is.
		But there will be things that people know.
		For example, we may know beforehand that it goes from Las Vegas to Perump to somewhere else and back to Las Vegas.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Fascinating.
		Fascinating.
		And how many do you think will be involved in the race itself?
		How many teams?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The IRR, I'm sorry, the Open Challenge or the DARPA Challenge?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, either one.
		Well, how about the other one, not DARPA?
		The Open Challenge.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The Open Challenge, we're expecting around 80 teams to try out.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I would imagine so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, the entertainment value of that alone, pretty serious.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		And then we're also talking the rules.
		We're probably going to let a vehicle that goes out of bounds once it's stopped, and if they want to continue, they can continue.
		They would not be able to be eligible for the prize, but they would still be able to finish the race.
		And that decision was made because of its sponsor value and because of the learning value to the team.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And the sponsor value, entertainment value equals lots of things.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's what makes this all possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
		Big audience, sponsorship, and so away you go.
		There's money.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Now, the IRRF is also going to have Robot City in conjunction with the race itself.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that will be what?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
		It's a robot city.
		We're expecting 40,000 to 60,000 people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My goodness.
		All right, let's talk for a second about artificial intelligence.
		How far do you think we are, Ron?
		I'm hidden away, as are most people, from people like yourself that are doing work in AI.
		How good is it getting?
		How serious is the work being done in AI?
		When do you think we actually might have a sentient is an awfully strong word.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, it's a very strong word.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very strong word, so I better not use that.
		Let's see.
		What would be the right word to measure what I'm trying to say other than sentient?
		Autonomous, I guess, is as good a word as any.
		Something that becomes autonomous because it is got such a quite such a measure of sentience.
		I don't know.
		How do you measure these things?
		I really don't know.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I personally set up 16 capabilities that I thought define sentience.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That work together to provide sentience.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And starting in the 70s, when I first became obsessed with artificial intelligence, I decided to do some of those 16 capabilities.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Can you reel a few of them off?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I can reel a few of them off.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, please do.
		I'm curious.
		Components in a sentient being, perhaps.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me just reel off a few of the interesting ones that I think you'd be surprised at.
unidentified		Sure.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I am not going to talk about them all.
		Okay.
		One would be the ability to sleep and dream.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And it would use the spare cycles to do random associations and then test the associations for patterns that match.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wait, this is so interesting.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A computer that would, in its spare time, be allowed to simply freely associate an essence, do random associations, and then test them.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, for matching patterns.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And use those in its computational power.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wow.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And examine them for possible New solutions.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Gotcha.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And so by doing that, we feel that we've cracked one of the essential ingredients for actual machine creativity.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The necessity of dreaming.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's really pretty cool, Ron.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I thought so.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I do too.
		Right on.
		It sounds like there's parts of this you don't want to or can't talk about.
unidentified		Right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What are those parts?
unidentified		Trying to slide it by me.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		See, I don't want anybody to have to go back in time and kill my mother or anything like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We want this to be a safe and synergistic relationship if it ever happens.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're telling me there are dangers and maybe even big ones in sentience?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, imagine a machine that can process faster than humans.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		That's, by the way, that can reproduce itself better.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's not getting too far from reality right now.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, right now it's actually still quite far from reality.
unidentified		Is it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It's for some people further than others.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And I don't want to achieve sentience literally until we have the ethics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, that's what I say.
		You perceive then a danger in sentience prior to being really sure about the ethics part of it.
		Why do you imagine such a stopper?
		Why do you think sentience without direction would be dangerous?
		And how do you imagine it might be dangerous, for example?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, it's dangerous even in humans.
		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.
		It just has to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So like Moses, you've got to hand this thing the tablets before you set it loose.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, so to speak, yes.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So I don't want to create a sentient machine unless I'm absolutely certain that no matter how far it evolves, it will keep its ethics.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Somebody, Matthew in Memphis, wrote, here's the three laws paraphrased.
		One, a robot cannot harm a human or allow one to be harmed.
		Two, a robot must obey all orders a human gives it unless it breaks law one.
		Three, a robot must protect itself unless this breaks law one or two.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And that's about it.
		So in other words, all the laws given are ones that reflect back to human beings.
		So he must have been very concerned with that one thing.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And I can understand completely why he was.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Apparently you can, because you sound concerned.
		I don't know if I should use the word frightened, not frightened by sentience, short of having the compassion.
		Oh, hold on, Ron.
		We'll be right back.
		Ron, Mad Max, Fink is my guest.
		We're talking robotics.
		And oh, we really are.
unidentified		This is fun.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We'll get to the phones in the next hour.
		Good evening.
		Good morning.
		I'm Art Bell.
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art bell ▲ ● ▼		And who would have thought that one conduit to a sentient being would be the ability to dream?
		That one knocked me off my feet a little bit.
		Ron Mad Max Finch is my guest, and you're about to have an opportunity to ask him questions about any of this.
		You know, sentience for a robot, and that's a road we still have to do a little traveling on our own here.
		Or the race, or the vehicles he's building, or what he's doing, or his dream.
		This is pretty wild stuff.
		Stay right where you are.
unidentified		Stay right where you are.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I want to remind this group one more time.
		All of you now, listen to me very carefully.
		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?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Very excellent question.
		I love that question.
		She never has to leave her home.
		She zips over to Walmart electronically, makes the order, dispatches her car to go get something, and come back.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, without the racing and competition venue, I'd put that at 15 to 20 years away, at least.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think with the venue, I think we'll have it in under 10 years.
unidentified		Wow.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, so the racing is very important.
		All right.
		For a moment, back to the questions on sentience.
		I loved your answer.
		Dreaming.
		You would allow your processors to dream.
		Now, what other avenue or road towards sentience might there be that we could hear about?
		Ron?
		Okay.
		had to think about that really hard, didn't you?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, because...
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Whether I want to talk about it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ah, look, come on.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Now, a computer has to be able to recognize those patterns in things that are esoteric or high-level.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay, I can see that.
		Pattern recognition, a subtler pattern recognition.
		Right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		For example, I mean, we can even look at it at different levels.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What is it about this that makes you hesitant to discuss it ahead of the ethics quandary?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I just looked at the other 16 in my head and said, which one of these can I say that's safe?
unidentified		And this was the one I could say that was safe.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I think it is possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		What about you?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I do believe it's possible.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It is a little scary in some respects, certainly.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, I respect it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I respect the power of sentience.
		And look, it's put us at the top of the food chain on our planet, at least.
		And frankly, that's not a post I want to.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Just though, for fun of it, how would you get past the Forbidden Project syndrome?
		Do you know what I'm talking about?
unidentified		No.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I am a great believer in free choice.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right then.
		Hard question, Ron.
		How would a robot respond to its owner beginning and obviously progressing with the act of suicide?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think the robot would have to allow that.
unidentified		Oh.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Now that's a tough one, isn't it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		See?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I intended it to be.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And that is a good one.
		That's a very good question to ponder.
		And you can bet we'll be talking about this after this discussion is over.
unidentified		Yeah, sure.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Put it on your list.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Ron Mad Max Fink.
unidentified		Good evening, Arch.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Good evening.
unidentified		Ron, yes.
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		As sadly, Brett Farav's father just appears to have, by the way.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Late-breaking news, and the car, of course, crashed and ran off the roadway.
unidentified		Exactly.
unidentified		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, all superb questions.
		And I think the answers are yes.
		That's pretty much what you described at the beginning of the program, isn't it, Ron?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, that's exactly right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It doesn't actually do it by monitoring any kind of pulse or anything like that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I was just going to ask that.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It does it by recognizing whether or not he's in control of the vehicle.
		Another driving patterns.
		See, it learns, and so it knows what your normal driving patterns are.
		And if that changes abruptly, then it can detect that there's a problem that way.
		And so it can take control of the vehicle and know that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, all right, I've got it.
		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Not actually.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It would probably have already anticipated that necessity.
unidentified		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		If the human wasn't reacting fast enough, it would take over.
		So the only thing that I can draw on is that when I was 16 and 17, I had a situation.
		I had to leave home early.
		And consequently, my parents was not amenable to allowing me to have a driver's license.
		And so in order to get a driver's license, I had to take a driving course, which annoyed me because I believed that I knew how to drive.
		So instead of just taking a standard driving course, I took an acrobatic driving course.
		And I learned how to put the car into various kinds of spins and drive on two wheels.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think all of that got you started down this path somehow?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It could have.
		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
unidentified		That's right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It'd be another layered piece of protection if all the other cars around you vehicles were in connection with each other.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		The likelihood then of an accident goes down by another factor of 1,000 or something.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		As you say, the transition period where not all cars have any kind of technology is the period where the most dramatic kind of things will occur.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		When everybody has it and the cars actually talk to each other, then there's no problem.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But as this continues, aren't the insurance companies going to suffer horribly?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I don't know.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think they kind of like it when people don't get into accidents.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Do you think that?
		Yeah.
		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, I see that being a strong incentive for people to put the technology in their cars because the insurance rate will go down for those cars.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But that would mean the insurance companies wouldn't make a lot of money.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let's talk about that for a moment.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let's say.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And they're big enemies to have Ron.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let's say that the insurance companies are charging you $150 a month for your insurance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You could be right.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And here I was thinking they were going to have you murdered.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Not likely.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe not.
		Maybe not.
		Plus, then, of course, they could plot it all and all the lives that would be saved.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They've got some very clever mathematicians over there.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		With the efficiency of a brain considering the best route to get there, the savings in gas alone equals oil would be astronomical, wouldn't it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I would believe that we can probably save about 7% to 8% is what our analysis.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Because it would always take the fastest, most direct route.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And all of this in the drive to create an autonomous vehicle.
		Do you think that it would be widely, quickly, you know, with great excitement accepted?
		In other words, the one big worry, you see, I had was that it would kind of take the fun out of driving.
		And frankly, a lot of people just love to drive, and it is fun.
		A lot of times it's a blast.
		It wouldn't take that away.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
		There you go.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's where things go wrong with cars almost supernaturally.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, hold on, Ron.
unidentified		Trailer for sale or rent.
		Road to it.
		No phone, no food, no pet.
		I ain't got no cigarettes, I'm but two hours of pushin'broom buys a eight-by-twelve four-bit room.
		I'm a man of means by no means, king of the road.
		Third, number one.
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		I should not give you no breaks, hey, hey, bad boys, bad boys.
		What you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you?
		Ha ha ha!
		Ha ha ha!
		Thank you.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, here we go.
		What about the cops?
		Now, that's no small matter.
		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?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes, in places where it had to do that, yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Like where there were signs that said 55 miles an hour, 45, 35, 25, school zone, 15, whatever.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would observe those.
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It would put the cops out of business.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So it's got to serve.
		I'll be damned, so it's got to.
		Is somebody like the Discovery Channel going to cover this?
		It would be perfect for them.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They actually are planning to cover the DARPA race, and we're hoping that they'll also cover the International Robot Racing Federation race.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hot diggity dog, because I certainly would love to see it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I think that Monster Garage has already planned at least one episode around it.
		And I think Discovery Channel is planning a six-part series, I've been told.
		I don't have that directly from them yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		They do some incredible stuff.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
		This seems to have struck a nerve with people.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I wonder, yes, it certainly has struck a nerve in me, and I'm trying to figure out what nerve.
		In other words, what is it about this that's so completely intriguing?
		I wonder.
		You know, I wonder if I would like it.
		You know, having not just a smart car, but possibly a sentient car.
		That's amazing to even think about.
		All right, let's go to the phones.
		Wildcard line, you're on the air with Ron Mad MaxInc.
unidentified		All right, thanks for taking my call.
unidentified		This is Mike, 1200, WOAI San Antonio.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes, sir.
unidentified		My question for Ron is, could these cars be controlled remotely, say maybe GPS?
unidentified		And if so, then this has got to be one of the scariest shows that I think I've heard, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Really?
unidentified		Oh, yeah.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, that's a pretty good rundown there, Ron.
		I mean, that's probably from the truck driver's perspective.
		I got a feeling the guy might have been a trucker.
		But, you know, it's a good question.
		Right now, there is a mate, one of my friends, one of my very good friends, is a trucker.
		He does nothing but go back and forth and back and forth across the country, the whole country.
		That's how he makes his living.
		Now, autonomous trucks, they take the truck drivers' jobs away.
		What about that?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's take the first part of his question, which was, can anybody else take control of your vehicle?
		And the answer would be no.
		As I said before, I'm a strong proponent of individual liberty and free choice.
		And I believe that you still need to be able to control your belongings.
		And so I would definitely oppose anything that would allow anybody else to take control of your vehicle.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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?
		Oh, he's right.
		What a gigantic control that would be.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, let's talk about the control issue.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, let me give you a real scary scenario.
		Your vehicle receives a communication that you just blew a court date and there was just a bench warrant issued for you.
		And so your vehicle says, aha.
		it locks all your doors so you can't get out and starts toward the police station to turn your butt in.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I would never, ever become a part of that.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		How do you figure?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we have it's the choice thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Your ethics would prevent you from programming that in.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And if somebody came to you and said, we want that, we want that in this.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm sorry it's not going to happen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Not going to do it, huh?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'd sooner not go into that business than to do something, than to deliver something like that.
		Now, they have ways of dealing with that, which they do already.
		The job is not to put the police out of work.
		The job is to let them do their job.
		And if there is a bench warrant, then they can go to your house and serve it just like they do now.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It just seems like so much new technology.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Most new technology, Ron, honestly, just runs into the Fourth Amendment doing 90 miles an hour broadside.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, each new technology has been a two-edged sword.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's right.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, maybe some of that has occurred.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Maybe.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		But on the other hand, it's been a much larger tool for freedom, and the Internet is a classic example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That, I guess, I must agree with for now.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And I believe that in any new technology, in robotics and sentience, if it ever can arrive, if it's possible, will be a two-edged sword.
		And there will be some cases where people use it for evil things or for control.
		And there will be many more where it's used to enhance freedom and enhance your capability.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let's look at what happened in Iraq.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		The biggest scare that we had was when a supply line with people drivers went astray and captured.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's a true statement.
unidentified		Yes, that's where Jessica and the rest of her team.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And that was a very unpleasant experience and a very scary experience for all of us and especially for her.
unidentified		Sure.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It would make choices about how to avoid those things.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		But yes, but in defense of itself, in the end, with an Iraqi vehicle with Iraqi guys in it, it might have to blow it off the face of the earth.
		it might have to outrun it you're telling me We're talking a war here.
		you kill the enemy in war so you're You don't want to put a gun on that thing.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I don't want to put a gun on that thing.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, you see, you'd have to put a gun on it.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		In that situation, you'd have to put a gun on it.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		You know, DARPA may buy the technology from somebody.
		And they may put a gun on it.
		But they have stated that their purpose is for supply line vehicles and for the delivery of supplies and medicines.
		And I have to go with that.
		And at this point, I think anybody in their right mind would not want to put guns on that unless there were some very compelling reasons.
		And they would have to be...
		They would.
		But at this point, I mean, look at the lives we'd have saved.
		This machine has the capability to do reckoning by landmarks completely.
		So it can drive and know where it's going and not make a wrong turn.
		And it would not have gotten itself into the trouble that our human drivers did in that situation.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		We may be getting to the root of why DARPA really dropped you.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It may be, you know, who knows.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		It's your attitude.
		Wild card line, you're on the air with Ron Wildman, think, actually.
		Yes, hello.
unidentified		Hey, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		How are you doing?
		It's a pleasure to speak to you.
		Thank you.
		Two questions for you guys for a quick comment.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sure.
unidentified		I am a truck driver, and last caller took a little bit of my thunder.
		But there is available now on trucks, and I've never personally driven one with the collision avoidance software they have in some of the trucks.
		I was wondering if he's using some of that equipment in his work.
		And also, I'd like to know how much longer we're going to have jobs, because it sounds like they're just going to get rid of us.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Well, there is that aspect of it, isn't there?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		So do you know anything about the current collision avoidance?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Let me go real quickly for you?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		First of all, I think that our stuff is going to be an order of magnitude past the current collision avoidance.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's what he's worried about.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		But the other thing is that, and you touched on this in the last segment, but basically I expect acceptance to be very slow.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		For example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		For example, my caller.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		There will be a lot of occasions where a new technology takes time to be accepted and trusted.
		And once it's trusted, what will actually happen?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You see, this man is a truck driver, he's seeing it sneak up on him right now.
		He just mentioned it.
		Collision avoidance.
		And they can even sometimes tell exactly where a truck is.
		And all kinds of things are really invading a trucker's life.
		And you're kind of drawing a roadmap here of eventually, you know, no truck driver at all.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		It probably will take a while to be accepted.
		And it will probably be a long while.
		And when it does, it will do it by bits and pieces.
		And it will just take some of the drudgery away at first.
		And then maybe you'll be able to sleep during long hauls.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Will all this happen before my caller dies?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, without putting on my predictive capabilities here, I just, you know, I can't see into the future yet.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You're in a better position to call on this one than we are, though.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		I mean, you're in development of this stuff, so how about it?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I believe it'll go into in a gradual way.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm looking at more capabilities in five and more in 10, and then this pervasive thing probably in 10 to 15.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Sounds, well, caller, I don't know how old you are, but sounds like maybe in your lifetime.
unidentified		Yeah, well, it sounds like a lot closer than that, to be honest with you.
		One more comment real quick.
		If they can put a gun on it, they will put a gun on it.
		You better believe that.
		I see.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I agree with that.
unidentified		Thanks a lot, Mark, for keeping us awake at night.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Take care, sir, and good luck.
		Yeah, I mean, he's right.
		You know he's right.
		You're admirably, I don't know, on the Peace Road, obviously, Ron, and you get marks for that.
		But, man, they'd run over you like yesterday's garbage.
		East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Ron Fink.
unidentified		Hello?
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Hello.
unidentified		Yes, good morning to both you gentlemen.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And to you, ma'am.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Where are you?
unidentified		I'm in Florida.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All the way over in Florida.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Okay.
unidentified		What I would like to know is how practical would his car be for someone who's blind?
unidentified		Uh-huh.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Ho-ho.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		My guess is real practical.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Real, real practical.
		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.
		A good example.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Boy, I certainly agree with that right down the line.
		And for her, of course, it would be, oh, the incredible amount of freedom that comes with being able to go places.
		Gosh.
		All right, listen, do you have any do you want to give out your email address?
		You're welcome to if you do.
		Or do you have a website or have you written a book?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Okay, well, let's hit that real quick.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right, let's.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We have rapidrobots.com.
		So if you go to www.rapidrobots.com, that will be our website.
		And on the website is some of our sponsors.
		And we're very grateful to the help that we've received so far in this endeavor.
		And also, please check out the International Robot Racing Federation, which is www.irrf.org.
		And you can also link to it from my site.
		That will talk about the races and about the concept of using competitions as a way to advance technology faster.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Any robot photographs on there?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're adding to it every day.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		So feel free to check back often.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		www.rapidrobots.com altogether.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		R-A-P-I-D-R-R-R-O-B-O-T-S.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Rapid Robots.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And the other one is IRRF.org.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		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.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		They're going to have to run the, what do you call it?
		The word just slipped my brain.
		They are going to have to run the gauntlet.
		They are going to have to run the gauntlet.
		It will be a challenge.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And it will probably be videoed.
		It'll probably be on the Discovery.
		Any idea when the Discovery Channel might run such a thing?
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Well, we're in Popular Science in the March issue.
		We're also in the Journal of Automotive Engineering, also in March.
		And we are in Wired.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		Oh, and in Wired, too.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		You made Wired, huh?
unidentified		Yes.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		That's hot stuff.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		And also, we talked about the Racing Federation there in all three of those venues.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		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.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		And we will be watching for you, and it has been a pleasure having you on the program.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		I'm very happy to be here.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		A lot of fun.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		We definitely should talk again.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		Well, well, we shall.
		Good night, Ron.
ron fink ▲ ● ▼		Good night, Art.
art bell ▲ ● ▼		All right.
		N-O-Program, folks.
		I'm sorry we're out of time.
		What a blast it was, though.
		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.
unidentified		This magical journey will take us on a ride filled with the longing, searching for the truth.

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