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APRIL 2018 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 15 that we will be one of the first areas where there will be roads that humans will not be allowed to drive on— and that may not be a total- ly bad thing. The advanc- es in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer learning, as well as the ability of ve- hicles to communicate with each other, have increased at quantum levels over the last few years and that rate of increase is accelerating. The autonomous vehicles becoming available see ev- erything around them, com- municate with other vehi- cles, and make accurate de- cisions with only one vari- able being almost beyond prediction: humans. What will the human driver sharing the road do? What decisions will the human make? How does the computer react to that unknown? It therefore makes sense that, initially, there will be roads where the autonomous comput- er-controlled vehicles will be walled off from the more unpredictable and therefore probably more dangerous humans. Once the statistics begin to show that the rate of accidents in the computer driving isolated road segments are very much lower, there will be an argument to increase them and reduce the access to the less capable humans. This is not going to hap- pen tomorrow but, if you think about it, it very may well happen rapidly. In a few generations, instead of being a rite of passage, learning to drive may be something that only the few do and then only as a special interest skill with significant limitations. Let's look at autonomous drive levels from zero to five (Figure 3). Until very recently, all transportation, be it horseback riding through 99.9% of today's vehicles, have been level zero. Starting a few years ago, higher-end cars became available with a level capability. Level two is now available and in final stages of test- ing, but not in use except under test or limit- ed trial conditions. We can expect level three to be in more widespread use over the next five years, or sooner. I am afraid the limita- tions are now more dependent on the legisla- tors and lawyers than the engineers. Once we get to level four, full automation is only a short step away. Look at Figure 4 and you get an idea where this will happen first, but expect that it will happen, and you can hope or fear, depending on your point of view, that it will happen. To get an idea of the accelerating rate of progress regarding autonomous transporta- tion in just the last few months, let's look at Figure 3: Autonomous driving levels. (Source: Bloomberg, per SAE International and J3016) Figure 4: Driverless by state.