Self Driving Vehicles - The Jurassic Period

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Autonomous smart car scans the road operates the machine automatically stops at the crosswalk in the city. Credit: Getty Images

This will be a multi-part series about driverless cars, autonomous vehicles (AV), driving artificial intelligence, ADAS and how Silicon Valley played its part. We are looking at the grade of intelligence and the danger of the technology. We determine if the AV should be regarded as an Advanced Artificial Intelligence (AAI), a Magical Race Car (MRC) or an Alien lifeform.

1963: Herbie – The Love Bug

In 1963, the German Scientist Dr. Gustav Stümpfel created Herbie – Der Volkswagen as part of the project “Paperclip,” which also brought over Wernher von Braun and his V2 rocket scientists, laying the foundation for NASA. In a series of documentaries (starting with “The Love Bug”), Walt Disney Corp tells us the history of Herbie, a VW Beetle. Herbie was from San Francisco, was racing in Monterey, and was wearing number 53 in honor of Dodger’s Cy Young winner Don Drysdale.

Later, Herbie got into the hands of Lindsay Lohan, who is known for choosing Bay Area’s Steph and Ayesha Curry to be godparents to her son. (Actually, let me rephrase that since a lot of people have probably chosen Steph and Ayesha Curry to be godparents to their kids.) Lindsay Lohan is known for having the Curry family from Atherton accept the responsibility of being godparents to her son. In terms of technology, Herbie would fall into the category of Magical Race Car (MRC). Apparently, the car had a soul.

1971: DuDu – The Superbug

Unbeknownst to many, Herbie had family. Herbie’s cousin DuDu is a crime-fighting AAI Superbug. His driver’s name was Jimmy Bondi.

Herbie also had an evil twin brother named Horace. Due to some tragic events, Horrace developed a mental illness and took his own life.
At this time the family is asking for privacy as they grieve.

1982: K.I.T.T. – The Pontiac Firebird

Knight Industries equipped a 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with all kinds of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and named it K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand). Many of those ADAS have become industry standards since then. But KITT also had additional advanced AI capabilities, many of which are still years away. The creator of K.I.T.T. is one of those tech bros with too much money named Wilton Knight. His driver was Michael Knight.

Unfortunately, K.I.T.T. also has an evil twin. KITT’s brother is named K.A.R.R. (Knight Automated Roving Robot). KARR was an early prototype optimized for self-preservation. KITT, on the other hand, was programmed to protect human life.

1983: Christine – 1958 Plymouth Fury

There was definitely something wrong with John Carpenter’s Christine. If this car was an Artificial Intelligence, they forget the part with ‘programmed to protect human life’. But it is more likely that this car was bewitched since it also had some kind of magical self-repair technology. It’s supposedly dead and destroyed now, but we don’t want to speak ill of it; this one might be able to come back to life and haunt more drivers.

1987: Bumblebee – another VW Beetle

Gotcha! Everybody knows Bumblebee isn’t a real car. The Transformers are not vehicles, these are Alien living Robots from planet Cybertron. Maybe Herbie and Christine were too?

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Now, this was all a long, long time ago, and only a few might remember these vehicles. While there were plenty of other international research projects, the new era of Autonomous Vehicles really started in this century. The event that started the new era is most likely the 2004 DARPA Challenge. Also in 2004, DARPA introduced the world to the mysteriously car-free island of LOST.

Wait … maybe that was DHARMA. … and maybe there was a VW Bus …

… Anyway, I hope to figure out the genealogy of self-driving vehicles within the next few weeks.