Happy New Year! @20211231
The future of autonomous driving and transportation systems---"Intelligent transportation-free": a science fiction perspective
Preface:
Transportation is everywhere. The best transportation should be "Intelligent transportation-free", which corresponds to the statement in Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems (by Kevin Kelly) that "the best control is out of control". Why? Because the essence of traffic and transportation system is to reconcile the spatio-temporal imbalance in the distribution of matter, information and energy. Ideally, this imbalance would cease to exist and there would be no demand for transportation.
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As defined by Wikipedia “Transport refers to all communication of people, passengers and goods by means of apparatus (trains, cars, motorbikes, boats, aeroplanes, etc.), or by human beings alone, but is broadly interpreted to include information communications such as postal and telecommunications.”
Transportation in the broad sense includes telecommunication. The only thing is that telecommunication is the transmission of 0/1 bitstreams, photons and electrons, invisible electromagnetic waves, which ultimately achieve the information communication; while transportation in the narrow sense refers to the use of apparatus (cars, boats, aeroplanes, etc.) or human beings alone to carry out communication and transportation for the flow of people, passengers and goods, achieving the displacement of people or goods through space and time.
By extension, a more general definition of transportation might be "the spatio-temporal displacement of matter (including energy)[1] accompanied by information". Under this definition, transportation has been occurring all the time since the Big Bang (if there was one), creating planets, life, and intelligence. From the movement of celestial bodies to metabolism within life entities and even the movement of microscopic particles, all can be considered as a transportation phenomenon. Thus transportation is ubiquitous and in everything!
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Back to transportation in a narrow sense, the transportation industry is undergoing a qualitative transformation with the rapid advancement of information and communication technologies (ICT), and the penetration and widespread use of ICT technologies, e.g., connectivity, cloud computing, big data and distributed systems, as well as artificial intelligence.
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In the transportation industry, there is no doubt that autonomous driving is the hottest area. As a researcher in this field, I am personally not so optimistic about the future of autonomous driving. If the objective is to pursue a perfect, absolutely safe (autonomous-driving) system, then perhaps another 15 years may not be enough to achieve it. Furthermore, perfect systems do not necessarily always perform perfectly. As the Architect in the movie Matrix expresses that the perfect Matrix brings monumental failure,
"The first matrix I designed was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime, equalled only by its monumental failure."
"The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being".
Other state-of-the-art research and development in transportation, such as Hyperloop (the shuttle shown in Godzilla vs. Kong is not that far from reality and might even already exist), space (interplanetary) travel, and urban aerial mobility, may be easier to be applied in practical applications. When it comes to urban aerial mobility, perhaps Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) will be implemented in daily travel before driverless cars, as their ODD extends from the very confined two-dimensional plane to the relatively vast three-dimensional space.
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We are in an era of information explosion and radical change in all industries. Just as the decline in the gum market is due to the popularity of WeChat and mobile internet, experience tells us that disruptive changes that revolutionise an industry do not always come from within. In the case of transportation, history has shown that it is the emerging information and communication technologies such as wireless connectivity, big data and artificial intelligence that have triggered a huge change in the traditional transportation system, and this trend has already taken shape.
Looking to the future, we must not only focus on the narrow field of transportation, but also the frontier technologies in the pan-transportation and broad transportation contexts, such as domains of quantum, materials, advanced energy, virtual reality, biotechnology, and even theoretical and technological breakthroughs in the fields of consciousness and philosophy.
Here are a few examples of how seemingly unrelated fields can affect the transportation industry.
(1) Human as biochemical robot
The (disruptive) breakthrough in autonomous driving may come from a deeper understanding of biotechnology and in particular the science of the human body. The human body is, in a way, a highly sophisticated organic carbon-based biochemical "robot"[2], and can thus be seen as a "self-driving vehicle". Research into the human brain, human consciousness and human intelligence will certainly lead to advances in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which in turn will drive technological advances in autonomous driving.
(2) Virtual Reality
The burgeoning concepts of Metaverse, Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) can be annoying in 2021. If the metaverse really comes into practice and most of people's entertainment and work are shifted to the virtual space, the physical mode of transportation and mobility demand will then change dramatically. Taking a step back, applications of virtual reality such as the Digital Twin could assist in the testing and verification of autonomous driving. However, I personally have a negative attitude towards virtual reality, especially the metaverse, not because of its technical difficulty, but because of its impact on people and society when it is applied on a large scale: the human body is already bound to a narrow electromagnetic band, there will be another layer of bondage if uploaded into the metaverse, plus there is a fundamental asymmetry between the ordinary players and the creator of the metaverse.
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(3) Implementation of Doraemon Magic Box in logistics
With the disruptive advancement in material science and "3D" printing technology, people can print what they need in their home, which is kind of like Doraemon's "magic box". This leads to the era of "intelligent less transportation", where only the transport of the raw materials required for "3D" printing is necessary. Supplemented by the corresponding information flow (blueprints of the objects), people can print what they want. The transport of raw materials could also be carried out using "quantum transportation" when quantum technology becomes commonly available in daily life and become one mode of transportation.
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(4) Breakthroughs in "quantum technology" brings up quantum transportation
Imagine, when quantum communication technology has advanced to a certain stage where we can not only transmit a single or a few photons, but also the overall quantization of large objects. Or one step back, we first carry out quantum decomposition for the object (mass) to be transported, and then, at a specific point in time and space, implement quantum recombination according to all the information of the original object. The manner of quantum decomposition and recombination would be extremely ethically controversial when considering quantum transporting the human body.
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In any case, the maturation of quantum teleportation technology, complemented by 3D printing in (3), will renovate existing logistics. Incidentally, quantum teleportation is likely to consume a lot of energy, so a breakthrough in clean and sustainable or even infinite energy sources is particularly important. When unlimited energy becomes a reality, the transformation of the existing financial and social structures will be a separate topic, and transportation may then be unnecessary.
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(5) The ideal state: "Intelligent transportation-free"
The realization of transportation-free can initially rely on optimization, using various types of optimization algorithms to fully integrate and dispatch existing temporally and spatially unbalanced material and resources to minimize mobility demand and traffic volumes.
In a later stage, with the help of (2) virtual reality and other relevant technologies and applications, the physical transport of people and goods could be reduced at a large scale. We can rely on (3) and (4) to meet the rigid demand for transportation.
Finally, with breakthroughs in the philosophical perception of the collective consciousness of mankind, i.e., that everyone realizes that we are all self-sufficient and we should enjoy every moment of bliss, there is no need for transportation at all. Then the ideal state of "Intelligent transportation-free" is possible.
This is perhaps in keeping with the ancient Chinese Daoist idea of Lao Tzu, e.g., "small territory and population". In the ideal world, the "Unity of Man and Nature"(天人合一) is realized.
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Focusing on the present, we need to be open-minded to view autonomous driving and the entire pan-transportation industry and prepare for the singularity of change in relevant areas. The singularity may already be close at hand and we need to make it together.
[1] Note: Energy and matter can be transformed into each other, or energy can be seen as a manifestation of matter.
[2] The coding language is the gene.
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附中文版更流畅
未来自动驾驶、交通系统之“科幻”畅想 终极形态---“智慧不交通”
2021倏忽而过，比2020都显得更为匆匆。值此公历新年马上到来之时，展望2022及更长远的一段未来时光中交通行业的发展变革，本文基于为某大厂准备的序言草稿改进而成，仅仅作为开放视野的参考，不具学术严谨性，谨慎参考。
题 记
交通无所不在，无时不生，始于宇宙大爆炸。
最好的交通便是“智慧不交通”，对应凯文凯利在《失控》中所言“最优的控制是失控”。何以谓之？因为交通的本质是调和物质、信息、能量在时空分布的不均衡。最理想的状态便是这种不均衡不复存在，没有交通需求。
广义泛交通
按照维基百科的定义:
交通指所有透過器具（火車、汽車、摩托車、船、飛機等）、或僅靠人力进行的人流、客流和货流的交流运输，但廣義解釋也包含郵遞、電信等人際資訊方面的交流。
广义的交通是包含通信的。只不过通信中交流传输的是0/1比特流，是光子、电子，是无形的电磁波，最终实现信息的沟通；而狭义的交通是指利用器具（车、船、飞机等），或仅靠人力来进行的针对人流、客流和货流的交流运输，实现的是人或货物跨时空的位移。推而广之，更普适、更广义的交通或许可以定义为“物质（含能量，注:能量和物质可以相互转化，或者说可以看作物质的一种表现形式）伴随信息的时空位移”。在此定义下，自宇宙大爆炸(如果真有的话)为始，交通便无时无刻不在发生着，并创造了星球、生命、与智慧。大到天体运动，小到新陈代谢，乃至微观粒子的运动便都可视为一种交通现象。可以说，交通无处不在，无所不包！
狭义交通
退回狭义的交通，在信息通信技术飞速发展的当下，随着联接技术、云计算、大数据与分布式系统，以及人工智能等ICT技术的渗透与广泛应用，交通行业亦发生着质的转变。
交通行业最火的领域莫过于自动驾驶。作为相关方向的研究工作者，笔者对自动驾驶的前景却不甚乐观。如果目标是追求一个完美、绝对安全的(自动驾驶)系统，那么或许再一个15年都不一定能够实现。并且，完美的系统不一定会有完美的表现，正如黑客帝国《Matrix》里架构师Architect所表述的完美的Matrix带来不朽的失败。
"The first matrix Idesigned was quite naturally perfect, it was a work of art, flawless, sublime.A triumph equaled only by its monumental failure." "The inevitabilityof its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfectioninherent in every human being".
相对应的其他顶级交通方向或许会更早的进入实际应用比如超级高铁（《哥斯拉大战金刚》里分离文明的地心Hyperloop其实并不遥远，甚至已经存在）、太空（星际）旅行（2021年被视为太空旅行的元年）、城市空中交通等。提到城市空中交通，或许无人驾驶飞机（Unmanned Aerial Vehicle）会早于无人驾驶汽车应用于人们的日常出行中，毕竟其可行域(ODD)从极具各类束缚的二维平面扩展到了相对广阔的三维空间。
交通未来展望
我们正处于一个信息爆炸、各行业激变的时代。正如“口香糖消费市场的下滑是因为微信的普及”一样，以往的经验告诉我们彻底改变一个行业的颠覆性变革往往都不是来自行业内部。之于交通，历史已经证明引发传统交通发生巨大变革的是无线联接、大数据、人工智能等新兴信息通信技术，这个趋势已然形成。面向未来，我们不能仅盯着狭义交通领域，更要关注泛交通、广义交通语境下相关前沿科技，如量子、材料、先进能源、虚拟现实、生物科技，甚至意识与哲学等领域的理论与技术突破。
这里斗胆试举几个例子阐明看似风马牛不相及的领域如何影响交通行业。
（1）自动驾驶&生物科技
自动驾驶的（颠覆性）突破可能来自于生物科技尤其是对人体科学的深入解析。人体从某种程度上来讲就是一个高精密的有机碳基生化“机器人”Robot（编程语言基因），进而可以被看成是一种“自动驾驶车”。对人脑、人的意识以及人类智慧的研究必将促进通用人工智能（Artificial General Intelligence,AGI）的进步，进而推动自动驾驶的技术更新。印象中某访谈节目里提到过一具备自我意识的星际飞船，人们靠近飞船，即可懂其所想，甚至进行意识层面非语言的沟通（心电感应）。
（2）虚拟现实
元宇宙、AR、VR等概念在2021年可谓聒噪一时。若元宇宙真正成型，人们大部分的娱乐和工作都转移到虚拟空间，那时实体的交通出行模式将会发生质变。退一步，虚拟现实的应用比如数字孪生Digital twin可以辅助自动驾驶测试与验证。不过笔者对虚拟现实尤其是元宇宙是持消极态度的，不在于其技术难度，而在于其大规模应用后对人、对社会的影响：人体本已经很受束缚，仅能感知很窄的电磁频段，上载到元宇宙空间再受一层束缚，且与元宇宙的缔造者存在根本性的不对称。
（3）材料科学+“3D”打印技术助力物流实现的哆啦A梦任意盒
基于材料科学、3D打印领域的颠覆性创新，实现人人皆可自行打印所需物品，kinda实现哆啦A梦的“任意盒”。这时的交通，将处于“智慧少交通”的时代，即只需要完成“3D”打印所需原材料的运输，辅以对应的信息流（物品蓝图）。原材料的传输还可很放心地使用“量子交通”技术（如果量子交通能够成为一普遍可及的交通方式）。
（4）“量子科技”的突破催生量子交通
试想，量子通信技术发展到一定阶段，不仅仅能够实现单个或几个光子的量子化传输，还能够实现大物体、宏观物体的整体量子化及量子态传输，或者退一步，先将物体（质），进行量子分解，再在特定的时空点，根据原物体全部的信息实现量子重组。之于量子传输人，量子化分离重组的路径将面临极大的伦理争议。参考科幻概念短片：
《人体快递》
人体量子传送 https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Gb4y1r7Rq/
无论如何，量子传送技术的成熟辅以（3）中的3D打印技术将颠覆现有物流。顺便提一句，量子传送可能会消耗大量的能源，于是清洁可持续甚至无限能源的突破就显得尤为重要。无限能源成为现实之后现有的金融、社会，乃至整个人类的生存结构的变革则是另外的话题了，那时或许交通将完成没有必要。
（5）最理想的状态“智慧不交通”。
智慧不交通的实现初期可以靠优化，利用各类优化算法，充分整合、调度现有的时空不均衡的物质，尽量减少交通量；
后期靠（2）减少人和物实体交通的需求，靠（3）和（4）实现刚需的交通；
最后辅助于哲学认知人类集体觉悟的突破，即大家都自给自足，自得其乐，不需要进行物质交换时，“智慧不交通”将成为可能。这点或许能够应和中国古代老子“小国寡民”“老死不相往来”的道家思想契合。理想境界下，天人合一，万物自然。
迎接奇点
聚焦当下，我们要有足够开放的视野去审视自动驾驶，审视整个泛交通行业，为迎接行业变革的奇点做好准备。这个奇点或许已经近在眼前，需要我们一起去创造它。
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