Invasive hornet might opt for a free-ride on self-driving cars.
Recent headlines about a type of hornet referred to as the “murder hornet” have gotten quite a lot of buzz this past week or so.
It seems that the customary headline-grabbing killer bee is now being overshadowed by a murdering hornet.
Perhaps those forsaken killer bees need a new agent.
Here is a sampling of the hornet mania-inspiring captions:
· The Arrival of the ‘Murder Hornet’ (New York Times)
· ‘Murder Hornet’ Spotted In The United States (CBS News)
· Traps For ‘Murder Hornets” Are Being Placed In Tennessee (Knox News)
Meanwhile, here are some alternative banners that seem to offer another side about this bespoken and menacingly cutthroat hornet that has come upon us:
· Insect Experts Say People Should Calm Down About The Threat Of ‘Murder Hornets’ (Time magazine)
· Experts Say That ‘Murder Hornets’ Are Not, In Fact, Invading The US (Business Insider)
· Bug Experts Dismiss Worry About US ‘Murder Hornets’ As Hype (AP News)
And in case you are staying awake at night, worrying yourself sick about the invading murderous hornets, this headline might help you get some sleep:
· Praying Mantises Will Save Us All From ‘Murder Hornets’ (CNET)
A superhero apparently awaits in the wings, ready to put a halt to the demented hornets.
But let’s take a moment to first figure out what the real story is about these seemingly and unabashedly notorious hornets.
Properly known as the Vespa mandarinia, this inch-and-a-half mega-sized hornet is considered a non-native species of the United States (they normally reside in Eastern Asia), and some of them in the Fall of 2019 were able to somehow “invade” into Vancouver Island, Canada, and also ended-up across the border into Washington state.
Efforts have been undertaken by wildlife entomologists and related specialists to find the hornet intruders and attempt to eradicate them.
According to the National Wildlife Federation, there have been no verified reports of the species in this year of 2020 as being spotted in the United States, and “there is currently no cause to believe that any of these hornets are still present in Canada or the U.S.” (per a May 8, 2020 posting by the NWF).
Those murdering hornets might be sneaky and perhaps don a disguise, so don’t entirely let down your guard, one presupposes.
The nicknamed attribute of “murder” is certainly eye-catching, and unfortunately also simultaneously misleading.
You would be mistaken to think that these dastardly hornets are trying to murder humans, which though this does rarely occur and their sting and bite can be horrifically painful, the real meaning of their murderous nature is that they relish killing honeybees.
Yes, those poor innocent honeybees that are focused on making, well, delicious honey, they are threatened by the murdering hornets that crawl into the honeybee hive and (trigger alert) literally rip the heads off of the beguiled bees, doing so with wild and determined abandon.
If the murdering hornets could establish a foothold in the United States, some say that they could cripple the estimated $15 billion sized economic contributions of honeybees by pretty much wiping out a significant portion of these honey-making creatures. The harmful impact on agriculture would be enormous and a slew of other direct and indirect adverse consequences would arise too.
Protect the honeybees!
Honeybees do have some natural methods to try and repel the attacking hornets, though the U.S. honeybees are not especially versed in doing so since the murdering hornets do not normally reside here. Turns out that the honeybees that have settled in the U.S. are known for their gentleness and not as aggressive toward these invading villainous hornets as comparable bees elsewhere.
In theory, it is possible to genetically try to have us reshape the honeybees, but this carries various risks and complications.
We could use pesticides to try and kill the murdering hornets, but that also has various downsides.
There are some natural predators of the murdering hornets such as the praying mantis, though whether there would be sufficient numbers of the killer of the killers is an open question, plus it might lead to other problems if somehow the praying mantis population suddenly exploded in magnitude.
Besides the threat to the honeybees, there is no doubting the potent punch that this hornet has in its arsenal and its dangers for the American public-at-large. This wicked hornet has a plentiful volume of venom in its over-sized body and can sting repeatedly, proffering a feeling as though you have been harshly stung via an overheated deep-piercing metal pin. In addition, the stinger is said to be so strong and lengthy that it can puncture right through the usual protective gear that beekeepers use for safety purposes.
These voracious hornets are also willing and eager to go after other insects and we would likely see bumblebees getting ravaged too.
All in all, the best bet would be to stop the invader before it establishes a beachhead.
Since the initial foray seems to be in a relatively confined geographical area, the hope is to focus efforts on finding and destroying the hornets there, first and foremost.
At the same time, let’s hope that the mania about the murdering hornets doesn’t get out-of-hand and leads people into trying to on-their-own kill everyday hornets that are already native to our lands. That wouldn’t be good either. And, perhaps equally as bad or worse, it is said that some people have been killing honeybees under the confused mindset that somehow the bees are the problem, rather than the hornets, or that if they kill the bees it will prevent the hornets from coming around (or, some other oddball and completely foolhardy notions).
Anyway, as mentioned, the hysteria will hopefully subside, and meanwhile, the scientists and wildlife specialists will be seeking to detect and prevent the invading hornets from spreading.
That’s a laudable goal.
Turns out, there is another inadvertent human-led action that could potentially undermine the efforts to contain and curtail the appalling hornet.
Here’s today’s intriguing question: Could the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars unintentionally spread these bad-to-the-bone hornets and perhaps other invasive species?
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public needs to be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Spreading Bad Things
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.
All occupants will be passengers.
The AI is doing the driving.
Many believe that the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars will help to significantly reduce the number of annual fatalities and injuries that occur due to car crashes, numbering around 40,000 deaths and approximately 2.3 million injuries in the United States alone each year (see this link here for my collection of stats about national and international driving incidents).
In addition, it is hoped that the emergence of self-driving cars will provide mobility for those that today are mobility disadvantaged. There is an ongoing issue in our country about the cost of mobility and the access to mobility, all of which it is predicted will be likely alleviated via the prevalence of true self-driving cars, leading to an era of mobility-for-all (a vital topic covered at an annual Princeton summit, see this link here and also as explained here).
The bright and rosy picture of a future with self-driving cars is not quite though the full picture.
One downside that needs to be dealt with involves the potential for a massive encroaching upon our personal privacy. This privacy issue involves the very key elements that make conventional cars into becoming true self-driving cars, namely the addition of sensory devices such as cameras, radar, ultrasonic, LIDAR, and other such devices.
Why might those advanced pieces of tech be anything but wholly beneficial?
They have the potential for becoming a Big Brother roving eye (the roving eye is the verbiage I’ve been using, see my analysis at this link here).
Think of it this way.
Every time that a car goes down your neighborhood street, imagine that the vehicle was chockful of cameras videotaping whatever is happening on your local street. This video could be uploaded into the cloud via the OTA (Over-The-Air) electronic communications of the self-driving car and be ultimately stitched together with similar data from hundreds, thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of other self-driving cars.
In short, our cars become a snitch of our every move.
Who owns that data?
When can that data be used?
We are all going to be involuntarily recorded, doing so without our expressed permission, simply by walking around our streets and roadways, and a vast collection of data can be mined to figure out where you were, where you went, what you looked like, etc.
That is something to be given due thought, and as a society, it provides a somber and serious matter to be wrestled with.
Meanwhile, there are other ways in which the advent of self-driving cars might have drawbacks.
Remember the murdering hornets?
They seem to be currently relegated to a relatively small geographical area, apparently in the northern part of Washington state.
That is certainly handy since it makes things easier to try and find and eradicate them.
Suppose though that the evildoer hornets were able to readily spread across the United States.
Now, you might argue that they could eventually do so, on their own, mile by mile, state by state, which is indeed the case, but the odds are that it would take quite a while for them to undertake such a migration. It would be somewhat slow and perhaps sluggish enough for us to detect them at each step and continue to try and blot them out.
Imagine instead if they were somehow magically able to transport themselves to all parts of the country, rapidly, and without any discernible pattern of expansion.
It would be problematic to try and halt their progress.
This presumed magical carpet ride would provide a perfect means for them to make inroads all across our great country.
And, wait for it, hold your breath, ready yourself, it could be that the magical carpet ride would be the use of true self-driving cars.
Those nasty murdering hornets could try to latch themselves onto a car, let’s say via the underbody or under-the-hood, and then go for a free-ride, jumping off like a hitchhiker at whatever next locale seemed of interest.
I’m not suggesting that the hornets are astute enough to realize that a car is a car, and nor that a self-driving car is a self-driving car, and only pointing out that by dumb luck the hornets might end-up hitching onto a self-driving car and go along for an easy and wide-ranging trip.
I know that you are already carping that there wouldn’t seem to be any difference between the hornets riding on a conventional car versus a self-driving car, and thus, it seems perhaps untoward to single out self-driving cars as an especially unsavory and unawares culprit.
Well, let’s include some added factors.
Currently, we drive our conventional cars a relatively short distance, using our endearing vehicles to get to work and home, along with trips to the grocery store or the gym.
Sure, we occasionally go on a summertime road trip, but that’s generally a rarer use of our cars and not the bulk of the miles consumed.
Some believe that self-driving cars will radically alter our distance going proclivities.
If you wanted to drive a large distance such as visiting a friend or relatives in a nearby state, you would need to drive that distance and likely take breaks as you do so. You might even need to have at least one other adult driver ready to take the wheel, in case you get sleepy or weary. It’s a heck of a chore and one that we tend to avoid doing, today.
Consider instead the use of a true self-driving car.
You are not driving and there isn’t any human needed for the driving.
Thus, you get into the self-driving car, tell the AI that you want to go visit your friend or relative, and the rest of the time you can play Parcheesi or binge-watch a favorite show or fall asleep.
The odds are that many models of self-driving cars will be outfitted to allow the seats to recline, allowing you to get a sorely needed nap while undertaking your morning commute to work or for those long road trips that could use a plethora of sleep. There are even designs of self-driving car interiors that encompass the ability to quickly swivel and click the seats into actual beds. And so on.
In short, the odds are that people will take self-driving cars for much longer trips than they ever imagined undertaking via a conventional human-driven car.
Wait for a second, you say, if that’s the case then why aren’t more people using buses to get across the country, since it effectively is “driverless” from the perspective of the rider (i.e., yes, there is a human bus driver, though you as the passenger aren’t involved with and presumably do not need to be involved in any of the driving itself).
Generally, people are not especially willing to ride in a long-haul bus to get across the country, partially due to the need to schedule the matter and also the obvious requirement to be amongst many other people, while for a self-driving car you just can on-the-spur of the moment hail one, and with relative privacy go on a journey to wherever you want to go.
Some even believe that the use of short-haul flights will decrease by quite a bit since people will choose to use a self-driving car instead. There is the ease of doing so, along with not having to go through the usual security checkpoints at airports and will therefore undoubtedly offer a compelling and alluring alternative to flying.
The point is that the advent of self-driving cars promises to enable us all to go on very long driving trips, as much as we like, and therefore we will begin to see car-related traffic that stretches from coast-to-coast, far beyond what we see today as primarily localized traffic in a relatively confined geographical area.
For the murderous hornets, it’s a proverbial leave the driving to us, via our AI, and we’ll take you wherever we are going.
That’s why I had mentioned earlier the notion that a magic carpet might appear to provide a means for the unwanted hornets to populate across the country, and for which there would not be any specifically identifiable pattern of the migration. The migration would be based on wherever people are going in their self-driving cars.
This would, in turn, be a nightmare for those trying to detect and fight the nefarious hornets.
Aha, some might exclaim, proof that we are embarking upon making our own Frankenstein that will inevitably turn upon ourselves (for my analysis of the false analogies to Frankenstein and self-driving cars, see this link here).
Conclusion
Before you start to lose sleep over the idea that self-driving cars are going to be a naive rube and unintended transmitter of the disreputable hornets, we do need to bring reality back into the picture.
We are still a long way from having true self-driving cars.
The number of experimental self-driving cars on our roadways today is a teensy tiny number of cars, and those tryouts are happening in quite confined geographical areas, partially due to the lack of sophistication as yet of the self-driving capabilities (see my discussion about Operational Design Domains or ODDs at this link here), and partially as it is more economical right now to do so.
The unwelcomed hornets are going to have to wait quite a while if they wish to use self-driving cars.
Get in line like the rest of us, one might say.
Meanwhile, it is certainly worth contemplating what we might do in the future and whether we will need to be more cognizant of how readily we can spread adverse things from place to place, via the added ease of car travel and the use of self-driving cars.
Furthermore, let’s not neglect the self-driving trucks that are being experimented with. Those obviously have as much chance if not more so of allowing for the rapid spread of something, given that they are purposely intended to go across the country, plus they offer a much larger surface or body onto which something could secret a ride.
There is a famous expression about being as mad as a hornet.
We should be careful about letting the genie out of the bottle, as it were, with respect to the advent of AI-based self-driving cars, and not allow ourselves to inadvertently shoot our own foot by providing a new way to spread untoward things around our country.
If we do, I suppose we will all be madder than a hornet.
