GM is showing off Tartan Racing's Boss at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For the uninitiated, Boss is an autonomous vehicle (i.e. it is controlled by an on-board computer). A few short months ago it was the decisive winner in DARPA's urban challenge -- a race of autonomous vehicles through an urban environment. The Chevy Tahoe's computer vision technologies were developed at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute. It is getting a ton of coverage in the mainstream press. I'm happy for any publicity autonomous vehicles get, but I'm surprised/upset by three things: 1) The press coverage is much heavier now then it was when it won the urban challenge. 2) Most newspapers seem to be focusing on GM and CMU seems to be almost a footnote. 3) Aside from the Today show story today most articles seem to be missing the point. They don't mention any of the benefits of autonomous vehicles (safety, traffic reduction, environmental impact, everyone can be chauffeured!, etc.) . Instead they focus on GM's "investment" or "gamble" on technology. Where's the boyish enthusiasm? The headlines should be something like "COOL! CAR DRIVES ITSELF!"
Links: Today Show | Wall Street Journal | NY Times
