AI & MOTORSPORT

ADA is committed to advancing the state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence through motorsport competition.

Society is changing. The next century will be dominated by developments in Artificial Intelligence and robotics. In fact, some believe the society will change more in the next 30 years than the previous 3,000 years.

It’s expected that we will see increasing collaboration between human and artificial intelligence, counterposed by increasing human versus machine competition. In fact, competition has already begun as AI is benchmarked against human performance in a wide variety of specialist tasks and the push for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

Competition is the essence of motorsport where the objective assessment of performance fuels the relentless pursuit of innovation.

We are entering a new era of motorsport where the very definition of a competitor becomes blurred. Human drivers, eSports Drivers and fully autonomous AI Drivers will compete side-by-side in the ultimate competition of technology and talent.

With this backdrop motorsport itself will naturally evolve and ADA is currently working within three distinct areas of future motorsport;

1. Robot versus Robot

2. Human versus Robot

3. Human & AI collaboration

Robot versus Robot competitions can push the boundaries of technology beyond acceptable human safety limits in terms of both speed and risk. 

Roborace is a pioneer in this space in the creation of Robocar as the world’s first fully autonomous race car. 

ADA is collaborating with Roborace to provide independent governance of the Sporting Rules and Regulations which allow of completive, yet safe, interaction between independently developed Automated Driving Systems (ADS).

In developing these regulations ADA’s focus was to ensure both the licensing and then continual behavioural assessment of AI driving performance without having access to the proprietary source code which is developed by the competing teams within Roborace competitions.

These unique insights are now being transferred to enhance field monitoring of AI systems deployed on our roads through the ADA Turing Test and a joint initiative with the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) on the global standard harmonisation. 

Human versus Robot competitions act as a benchmark for society in the capabilities of AI Systems relative to their expert human counterparts. The mobility-as-a-service industry sets the performance bar at the level human taxi driver. ADA pushes that expectation to professional emergency response drivers and motorsport world champions in challenges reminiscent of the landmark AI achievements in Chess and Go. 

Human & AI Collaboration competitions enable the introduction of AI Safety Systems to enhance the safety in traditional motorsport, particularly in non-competitive situations such as Red Flags, Full Course Yellows, Safety Car Periods and Pit Lane driving.

Additionally, the introduction of fully drive-by-wire vehicle control open up new opportunities for adapted driving using tailored digital human-machine interfaces for disabled athletes.