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00:10They say it takes about 1.5 seconds for the average driver to react to an unexpected danger.
00:17But factors like fatigue, distraction, low attention spans or the latest pressing concern
00:22that drivers watching reels while on the road doubles that figure to about 2.5 to 3 seconds.
00:28It might just be one single second, but it's what decides whether you go home or to the hospital.
00:35You know, all data confirms that human error is directly responsible for 90 to 94% of all car crashes
00:44globally.
00:45In India alone, we lost 1.72 lakh people in 2023.
00:49That's 474 every single day, one every three minutes.
00:55I have a feeling that as our attention spans worsen, this is only going to get worse.
01:01So, what's the solve?
01:03How do we fix this?
01:05For most of the world, it's pretty straightforward.
01:07Take the human out of the equation, which means...
01:13Autonomous vehicles, self-driving AI cars, and it works.
01:19Countries testing AVs are actually seeing effective reductions in crash rates.
01:24Waymo's AVs report 80% lesser injury-causing crashes.
01:28Clearly, this is a global trend.
01:31Germany, Japan, US, and China are all aggressively experimenting with AVs.
01:36They have robotaxis, drone deliveries, autonomous freight drugs that don't even have a driver's cabin.
01:42Hell, even farmers are getting AI tractors now.
01:44They're all embracing a safer future.
01:47In a place like US, for example, it is getting so good that actually people are in San Francisco.
01:52They are sending their kids via these cars to their soccer practices and stuff like that.
01:57But India, we've kind of unofficially banned them.
02:02Not because they don't work.
02:04Rather, because they work a little too well.
02:07See, removing human drivers also removes human jobs.
02:10So, it's a double-edged sword.
02:12For us, this is not an economic concern.
02:14It's cultural warfare.
02:16Because our driving sector has exploded from 2.2% to 4% of our workforce in the past decade.
02:24Uber alone employs well over 1.4 million registered drivers.
02:28Add Ola, Rapido, and the contribution of a few other apps,
02:32and also the 6.3 million other auto-rikshire drivers to that,
02:36and you get so many millions of lives at stake.
02:40That's why our Road Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari, has taken a strict stance against it.
02:49I guess, any country that deals with unemployment should not be trying to advance technology that could steal jobs.
02:56Luckily, the path forward is not binary.
02:59It's not humans versus AI.
03:01This technology actually exists on a spectrum.
03:04There's five distinct levels of automation,
03:06and each of them caters to different ecosystems.
03:10So, the real question here is,
03:11where does India fall in all of this?
03:13What level are we at?
03:15Where should we actually be?
03:17That's what I'm going to break down for you in this video.
03:20So, as usual, let's dive in.
03:26In 1925, New York City, the Houdina Radio Control Company,
03:31unveil the American wonder,
03:33a driverless car that was remotely operated using radio signals.
03:37They take it out for a demonstration,
03:39and it works.
03:41The car weaves around trucks,
03:43avoids milk wagons on the streets,
03:45and navigates intersections.
03:46It was a complete success.
03:48Up until the point, it crashed into a sedan
03:51filled with photographers and reporters.
03:53Now, I couldn't find the image,
03:54but I'm pretty sure at least one of the photographers
03:57got a front-page-worthy picture
03:58right before being sent to the ICU.
04:01Now, this wasn't exactly a driverless car,
04:03more like a life-size remote-control toy.
04:06It wasn't actually until 1977
04:08that Japan's Subuka Mechanical Engineering Lab
04:11built the world's first actual autonomous vehicle.
04:15It was equipped with cameras,
04:17analog processors,
04:18and a computer with only 8 kB of RAM.
04:21Yeah, kB, not TB or GB,
04:23not even MB.
04:24But despite that,
04:26it could use image recognition
04:27to detect lane markings and obstacles.
04:30Sure, it could only drive itself at 20 miles per hour,
04:33but it was a start.
04:34Cut to today,
04:35with a US-based company called Waymo
04:37that has put out a driverless AI system
04:39that can literally predict the future.
04:42And it does so through a combination of features
04:45like crowdsourcing map data,
04:47using radar reflection,
04:48and LiDAR to scan its environment,
04:51which low-key means
04:51that it can see through objects.
04:54It also has shared telematics,
04:56which means that it has access to real-time data
04:58of all other Waymo vehicles around it.
05:01Seems to me that these cars
05:02are kind of forming like a hive mind of sorts.
05:05Now, you combine that
05:06with its experience
05:07from billions of miles of simulations,
05:10and the AI can outline
05:11likely future paths
05:13for anything near it
05:14and pick the safest possible move.
05:17So, the advantage of building something
05:18like this end-to-end AI system in a car
05:20are such that
05:21they are also becoming
05:22more and more human-like
05:22in their maneuvers.
05:24They are not robotic.
05:25Checkmate.
05:26So, just to recap,
05:27cars can now see through walls,
05:29do telepathy,
05:31and even predict the future,
05:32while some of us
05:33are still pushing pool doors.
05:35Come on!
05:36Okay.
05:37AVs are clearly
05:38an incredible innovation.
05:40Just think about
05:40what this means
05:41for people who can't drive.
05:42Some of our grandparents
05:43went from independent
05:44to dependent overnight.
05:46Doctor, grocery store,
05:48a friend's place,
05:49they need assistance
05:50for their mobility now.
05:51And not long ago,
05:52they were the providers,
05:54the ones that took charge.
05:56AVs could help them
05:57give their freedom
05:57and independence back.
05:59Think about
05:59differently-abled people also,
06:01or even those
06:01with visual impairments.
06:03They've all been sidelined
06:05and kept away
06:06from the convenience
06:06that transport systems provide.
06:09So many rural communities
06:10and low-income urban neighborhoods
06:12also struggle with access
06:13to adequate transport
06:14because it's reliant
06:15on a human workforce.
06:17This technology, however,
06:19can change all of that.
06:21But when it comes to India,
06:23our culture
06:24might resist this innovation.
06:27Driverless car, sir.
06:29Driverless car, sir.
06:29Our driver,
06:30everyone,
06:31is less than a driver.
06:32Sir,
06:33every single car,
06:33every single car,
06:35every single car,
06:35is bar ╨┤╨▓╨░.
06:36No one can run.
06:38No other can't go.
06:38I won't be able to drive
06:38from the bus
06:38to the driverless car.
06:41I don't have to deal with it.
06:42What did you call this?
06:44What did you call this?
06:44If you call this car,
06:46the drive-in-run,
06:47and watch me on this.
06:49Precisely because driving is the primary source of income for millions in India, we've placed
06:54an unofficial ban on autonomous vehicles.
06:57And on paper, I get it.
06:59Protecting jobs, supporting families, all noble intentions.
07:03On one side, there's technology that could save hundreds of thousands of lives every
07:07year, and on the other, millions of people whose livelihoods could just vanish.
07:12But this isn't an ultimatum, we are not to pick a side, we just have to solve enough
07:17issues that we can somehow get the best of both worlds.
07:21And to do that, we just have to look at the five levels of automation for vehicles set
07:26by the SAE, a Society of Automative Engineers.
07:29So let's dive in.
07:34So level one is where the car starts helping you, but just barely.
07:39So the AI system here can control steering or acceleration, but not both, one at a time
07:45only.
07:46So if you want to rest your feet a little, you can.
07:49Just worry about steering and not hitting anything on the road.
07:52The system even has the ability to nudge you back into your lane should you drift out because
07:57of a feature called Lane Keeping Assist.
07:59But don't worry, you can always manually override these systems whenever you want with just
08:04some force.
08:05Best of all, it can pull the brakes for you before you even realize you're in danger.
08:10So Japan had made an amendment in 2021 that basically states that all new vehicles are required
08:15to be equipped with the automatic emergency brake feature of level one systems.
08:19And it worked.
08:20Rear end collisions dropped significantly once they did it.
08:24Meanwhile, the US had less success in these experiments.
08:27See, there's this weird paradox with level one, okay?
08:30When drivers know the car will brake for them, they sort of become less attentive than usual.
08:35And this can offset the slight advantage that the AI initially provides.
08:40Now in India, level one systems exist in some premium cars, but they're fighting an uphill
08:45battle.
08:45Because these systems are optimized for smooth roads, clear lane markings and predictable traffic.
08:51Show them Bangalore Silboa Junction at 5pm and the AI system will develop an existential crisis.
09:01Now this is where the presence of AI is truly felt by the driver.
09:05So level two means the car can handle steering and acceleration or braking simultaneously, creating
09:11the first genuine sense of self-driving.
09:13But there's a catch, you are still responsible, legally, technically and morally.
09:19Your hands should be on the wheel and your eyes glued to the road because the system can hand the
09:25control back to you at any moment.
09:27So you need to be ready.
09:29Tesla's Autopilot is level two.
09:31So is Mahindra XUV 700.
09:33And real-world data shows that level two systems reduce rear-end crashes by 52%.
09:39That is massive.
09:41Oh, and these systems even have attention monitoring, which it does through infrared cameras that
09:47track your blink rate, head position, where you're looking, etc.
09:51If your eyes close for more than two seconds or your hands leave the wheel for too long,
09:55the car alerts you, beeps, vibrates the steering wheel, eventually it'll pull over and stop.
10:02Not bad, yeah?
10:02And while a few motor companies in India are rolling out these systems, there's no official
10:07regulation or policies in place to adjust the autonomous vehicle ecosystem.
10:11So we are kind of at level two, yes.
10:14But it isn't by design, more a lack of intent.
10:17Level three onwards, we're dealing with something unprecedented.
10:20And for the service workers in the transport industry, it represents fear and uncertainty.
10:25You know, they get this sense that technology is something happening to them, not for them.
10:30But what I'm also realizing is that their fear is not about AI itself.
10:34It's about being unprepared for it.
10:36Because the truth is, AI isn't just automating jobs, it's also creating entirely new ones.
10:42Rovers that did not exist five years ago are now among some of the highest paying careers globally.
10:47AI product managers, prompt engineers, generative AI specialists.
10:50Some of these positions are pulling in salaries of 20 lakhs a year in India,
10:54and up to 1.5 crores in markets like the US.
10:56The demand is exploding. Over 2.5 lakh AI jobs are open in India alone right now.
11:02The difference between those who thrive in this shift and those who get left behind?
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12:04Okay, so we've covered how to go about making the most of this AI revolution.
12:08Now let's get back to autonomous vehicles because we are now looking at...
12:15Alright, so this is where we cross the line from assistance to actual autonomous driving.
12:22The caveat being that it'll do so only under specific conditions like designed highways,
12:27traffic jams under 60 km per hour and mapped urban areas.
12:31It isn't just steering and acceleration, a level 3 car can handle everything.
12:36It could even pass the notorious difficult license test in Dubai in its first try if it wanted to.
12:42And you, you can look away, read a book, answer emails, legally.
12:47Now the difference between level 2 and level 3 is who is responsible.
12:51So in operational zones, your car is the driver.
12:54And so if it drifts off into a footpath and accidentally runs over a dog or like a deer or
13:00something,
13:01don't worry, you're not responsible.
13:04Your driver, the AI is.
13:07Outside operational zones though, the being human, I mean the human being is responsible.
13:13So Mercedes-Benz drive pilot was the first commercially approved level 3 system.
13:17It operates on 13,191 km of German highways at speeds of up to 95 km per hour.
13:25So they've essentially turned their travel time into productivity time.
13:28I'd assume that we're rolling out level 3 systems within India as well, but we're not.
13:33This is where the unofficial ban kind of kicks in.
13:36Our Motor Vehicles Act mandates continuous human control and level 3 violates that.
13:42So even if Mercedes wanted to bring drive pilot to India, they legally couldn't.
13:51This is it.
13:53This is the sci-fi future we've been promised.
13:56A truly and completely self-driving car.
13:59Your very own Batmobile minus the Bat.
14:03Plus, no human is required to be present as long as the car is within its operational zone,
14:08which is usually a geofenced city of predefined routes.
14:12From perception, planning, decision making,
14:14and even taking charge during emergency situations.
14:17It can do it all with the same level of competence as Alfred or Jarvis.
14:24While level 3 system could possibly pass the license test in Dubai,
14:28level 4 systems are actually doing it.
14:31TXAI is a self-driving fleet in the UAE, authorized with the first license of its kind.
14:36This is also where Waymo's Robotaxis come in.
14:39Now, Waymo's Robotaxis have driven over 100 million fully autonomous miles,
14:44with a serious injury crash rate 91% lower than human drivers.
14:49Isn't that an amazing system?
14:51You can hear them 24-7 for emergencies.
14:54Imagine you live alone and have a level 4 system.
14:57And you're physically compromised for some reason.
14:59This car isn't going to be your lifeline.
15:01Just the thought of blind people getting from place to place without the need of external
15:06human assistance screams the pinnacle of progress to me.
15:10Unfortunately, level 4 benefits can only shine when there's ample infrastructure for it.
15:17Currently, it's restricted by its geofence, meaning that once it exits authorized jurisdiction,
15:23it must avoid autonomy and stop.
15:26There's also the surveillance concern.
15:28Level 4 vehicles are constantly recording.
15:31Cameras, sensors, location data, they need this to operate safely,
15:36but it also means someone somewhere has a complete record of where you've been,
15:40when and with whom, which may not sit well with those who have privacy concerns.
15:45So, if you're in your early 20s and want to sneak out of home and go to your partner's house,
15:49there's a good chance that the car will let the secret slip to the driving company,
15:54perhaps the government, and maybe even your very strict parents.
15:57Oh, and since we're only starting to understand the technology,
16:02it's not yet a match for Earth's natural forces.
16:05Extreme weather and harsh errands can possibly hamper the hardware and the software.
16:10But the biggest challenge with this tech is still public trust.
16:14So, Waymo releases crash statistics quarterly to maintain morale,
16:17and so far, so good, I guess.
16:20Except, there's other social issues that may pop up with such new technology.
16:24Like, for instance, I had a friend in the US use Waymo's services.
16:28And while she was safe in the car and trusted the operation entirely,
16:32at one point, she was followed and targeted by some drunk men.
16:35They stood in front of the car, triggering the safety precaution of the vehicle
16:39and causing it to completely freeze.
16:41And that's when she felt unsafe.
16:44Eventually, they just left, but it's definitely a concern I couldn't have imagined.
16:49And these little jinx need to be ironed out if we want to reap the merits of the system.
17:00Finally, we come to the holy grail of autonomous mobility.
17:04Level 5 autonomous driving systems can drive under every possible condition,
17:10a human could handle and more.
17:12It's basically level 4, but perfected.
17:15There are no drivers in this car, only passengers.
17:18Forget Alfred, it's your very own Batman.
17:21You know, the average driver spends 4.3 years of their lifetime behind the wheel.
17:26For many, that's time that could be spent building the future they want.
17:30The only issue, they're just theory as of now.
17:33They don't exist yet.
17:35It's going to take another 10 years before we see the final form of AVs.
17:40So now we know the system, the potential of this incredible AI technology.
17:44But before we continue, quick reminder, as I already emphasized earlier,
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18:05So now we know the system, the potential, but the biggest looming issue is that of liability.
18:12So you're driving a level 2 car and you swerve and hit a motorcycle.
18:15Who's responsible?
18:17You, right?
18:18But in a level 3 car, where you're allowed to disengage in the car,
18:21the situation is a little bit more tricky.
18:23In Germany, the car manufacturer is liable.
18:26In India, we don't know because it's legally undefined.
18:30India's existing motor insurance frameworks don't cover AV specific risks either.
18:36Software failure, cybersecurity breaches, etc. are all grey zones as of now.
18:41And due to the Motor Vehicles Act's lack of adherence to the AV ecosystem,
18:45companies like Mahindra, Tata Motors and a few others that are actively investing into AV systems,
18:50have their hands tied behind their back.
18:53And there's been no update since 2018, when amendments to permit AV testing were first proposed.
18:58Meanwhile, other countries are actually solving this.
19:01So the UK passed the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act, which states that insurers cover damages
19:07when vehicles are in self-driving mode, subject to proper software updates.
19:11Scandinavian countries have a no-fault mode for AVs.
19:14They recognize that accidents with autonomous systems are often too complex to assign individual blame,
19:20so they distribute responsibility collectively.
19:22It's still a work in progress, but it is still progress.
19:25Now, without clear regulations, car companies won't invest in AV technology for India.
19:30And that's a big loss.
19:32It seems to me that self-driving cars could prevent hundreds of thousands of road fatalities,
19:38reduce emissions and improve mobility for people with compromised agencies.
19:43And it could also prevent the 400-plus deaths observed on a daily basis in car crashes.
19:49The data collected by BMO shows that level for deployment caused 80-90% reductions in traffic fatalities.
19:55If we could achieve even half of that in India, just half, we'd save over 70,000 lives a year.
20:03But we're not moving forward because we're scared of what it might cost.
20:07Jobs, the displacement, the social upheaval.
20:11And I get it. I really do.
20:13Those concerns are totally valid.
20:15But what we have learned while researching this topic and talking to the drivers who will be affected
20:20is that they're not anti-progress.
20:23They're anti-being left behind by progress.
20:26So maybe it's time we stopped accepting protecting jobs as an excuse for inaction every single time.
20:32So there's a lot of operational jobs that are required for you to make sure is it doing the right
20:37task.
20:38People who are driving right now, now they're not going to drive.
20:40There are other ways in which they can monitor the cars.
20:42Companies do have like a lot of teleoperations and other things where people are kind of monitoring how the car
20:47is behaving.
20:47And there's also along this way, a lot of people required for both testing and validating this.
20:52So you still need drivers to test and validate the systems.
20:55You still need people to kind of go about labeling these things.
20:59To kind of have some kind of rewards and labels to make sure that, okay, whatever the things the AI
21:04is doing,
21:04can you teach the AI these kind of behaviors?
21:07So there's a lot more new jobs to be created actually.
21:09This kind of reskilling is actually even more scalable because earlier they were just driving cars.
21:15But actually, if you do the transition and work on this, the new skill they have learned could be used
21:19even for robotics.
21:20Because now they understand how do you go about teaching AI.
21:23So a lot of physical AI that's getting built out, the reskills that they did are actually going to be
21:27useful in the long term.
21:28For example, if you look at Germany, they didn't just roll out EVs, they built national skills programs specifically for
21:34this transition.
21:35They're piloting these shuttle service programs with the worker unions actually at the discussion tables.
21:41There's an ongoing partnership between government and transport companies focused on helping workers adapt to new mobility roles.
21:47So taxi drivers aren't just going to lose jobs there, they'll be trained as fleet managers.
21:53Delivery drivers will transition into logistics coordinators, they're basically trying to bring the people along with the progress in tech.
22:00Singapore had a similar idea, safety nets, transition assistance, education programs, whatever it takes to smoothen their transition.
22:09Every heavy pilot project they run includes workforce impact assessments.
22:14Now, we could also do the same, except we're treating this like a binary choice, jobs or safety.
22:20That's not the way to go about it, is it?
22:23You don't stop taking life-saving medication just because it gives you headaches and skin rashes.
22:28No, you just find a way to alleviate the side effects.
22:31I get that it won't be easy for the current generation of transport service workers, but who are they working
22:38so hard for?
22:39It's the children, the next generation.
22:41And the automation of cars could potentially provide these people an opportunity to provide their children with more opportunities.
22:48Now, yes, it comes at a cost, but it can be very worthwhile to pay that cost.
22:53Because the alternative, doing nothing, that has a price too, and we are paying it 474 times every single day.
23:30Now, this debate around self-driving cars is complicated.
23:34I've shared whatever I found around the topic, but I'm also just figuring all of this out.
23:39This conversation requires a lot of careful thought, regulation and moderation, which is hard.
23:45So maybe this piece is missing, and if there's something that you know more about this, please do share in
23:50the comments below.
23:50We would also love to learn from all of you.