Apple Car Will Leverage Machine Learning to Make Driving Decisions as Fast as Possible

Apple’s Car, when released, will make history as one of the first consumer vehicles to lack a steering wheel – and now we know about even more new features the Apple Car will bring.

The Apple Car will utilize machine learning because current auto processors are not fast enough to make key driving decisions without ML autonomously. It was expected that Apple would use machine learning (ML) in the vehicle since the fruit company’s AI chief John Giannandrea is now in charge. This is being featured because Apple wants decisions at the wheel to be made as fast as they possibly can for the consumer’s sake. Even a decision about a lane change can affect the processor, and that is how it works in current automobiles.

In the patent, Apple wants to use the technology “in some states, such as when the vehicle is traveling a largely-empty straight highway with no turns possible for several kilometers or miles.”

The patent also states, “the number of actions to be evaluated may be relatively small; in other states, as when the vehicle approaches a crowded intersection, the number of actions may be much larger.” 

If they choose to use this technology, that means the Apple Car would have to figure out “the current state of the environment” around the vehicle to make certain decisions that, if it were a regular car, would take much longer.

Then to finish it off, it will have to figure out a set of feasible actions that can be taken out. This means it works like a human brain; before you do something, you have a range of outcomes or options that play in your mind. ML is basically the same, just like how a human learns through experience over time, a machine needs to learn to eventually deliver an optimal experience.

Apple has recently faced some setbacks with the Apple Car project within the last few months, from employees and key executives leaving, among others – but the Apple Car project is still ongoing and expected for the full product to be in production in 2024 and a full consumer release in 2025.

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