EDITORIAL

Deep learning how to drive

Learning to drive as a teen is a rite of passage, my own experiences indelibly marked in my brain. But the “brain” learning to drive in the future won't be blowing out sixteen candles, if Nvidia has its way. Deep learning-a programming model that builds a “neural net,” basically a self-adaptive algorithm that acts like a human brain after being trained by data-is the perfect solution for self-driving vehicles, according to Tri Huynh, Nvidia's Senior Manager of Business Development - Autonomous Vehicles.

“One of the hardest computer science problems is self-driving,” he said during a Sept. 18 session at SAE COMVEC 17 on Vehicle Architectures for Connectivity and Processing. “The things you have to detect on the road, and make the right decision, is a nearly impossible software problem; you can never write enough software to detect everything you see out there.”