Self Driving Car Company Asks People to Generate Data with Mobile Phones
July 24th, 2016But what I really thought was interesting was the inducement to get people to do this: Comma Points and a scoreboard.
In other words, Hotz turned this into a game. I wonder if he plans to use the Chffr app to offer bonus points to get people to drive on roads that present particularly difficult challenges to the AI? See: Pokemon Go/Soft Control.
Via: cnet:
You don’t have to be a billionaire investor to get involved with the development of self-driving cars. Thanks to George Hotz and his company, Comma.ai, all you need is a cell phone, a windshield mount and Hotz’s own Chffr app.
Chffr is available only for Android phones at the moment. After downloading it, mount your camera on the windshield and open the app. Chffr records your drive and watches along as you navigate around bicyclists, wait for cars at stop signs and other daily traffic-related occurrences. It uploads that data to Comma.ai’s servers, which compiles all the data it receives to help its autonomous-driving kit learn to mimic human behavior.
For using Chffr, you’ll earn something called “Comma Points.” Nobody’s really sure what the points are for, but for the time being, they’re reflected on a leaderboard on Comma.ai’s site, so you can see who’s doing the best job at contributing. Right now, friend of Roadshow Alex Roy is in second place, and George Hotz himself is down in ninth.
