Would you travel on an autonomous bicycle?

Self-Driving cars are firmly on the radar, and strong growth in production is predicted for the coming years. Fully autonomous, driverless vehicles have been approved in various Chinese and American cities, and semi-autonomous vehicles (which require a driver behind the wheel) have been on our streets for longer than you might think.

But how about other modes of transport? Once we’ve perfected driverless cars, how about bikes, buses, ferries, and planes?

A driverless bus is a no-brainer and ships and planes are almost entirely autonomous already. We can expect to see these industries continue to pick up speed in tandem with autonomous car technology.

But how about autonomous bicycles? This seems like a relatively untouched area thus far...

On 31st March 2016 Google released a video demonstrating a new self-driving bicycle in the Netherlands. They claimed that this bike offered the opportunity to work on the go and boasted a ‘pick up’ feature where it would navigate to your precise location.

It was of course… an April Fools’ prank.

Surprisingly however, it took further three years until another autonomous bicycle video went viral.

A team of students in Beijing had created a self-riding bicycle that could not only auto-balance, but also respond to simple voice commands – stop, go, left, right, slow down and speed up - all thanks to a company called Tianjic.

Tianjic had brought to the market a new hybrid computer chip that can merge Machine Learning and brain-inspired computing – the two approaches to developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). Historically, these two approaches were difficult to merge because of an inability to communicate, but this new hybrid chip could combine ML algorithms and brain-inspired circuits, as well as traditional code.

So now the technology exists we can start mass producing AI-enabled bicycles, right? Well maybe. The question remains – what do cyclists think about all of this?

Bicycles are easy to steal, so a bike filled with computer parts and cameras would be nothing short of a beacon for thieves. GPS tracking would go a long way to alleviate the risk but wouldn’t stop a ‘smash and grab’, where the thief simply rips out the most valuable components and discards the rest of the bike. Weight is also an issue. Cyclists may be resistant to riding a bike that is encumbered with heavy batteries.

As a cyclist myself, I also think that there might be resistance to using technology at all. I enjoy the act of cycling in part due to its simplicity. No need to charge batteries, fill with petrol or program in a destination – I can just hop on and go. I’m not sure as a consumer I could be convinced I need a self-driving bicycle. Surely I could just take the bus?

I’m also not sure how I feel about being chastised by a pernickety algorithm every time I cut through a gap in traffic that the computer has deemed to be a little bit risky. It would be like having my mother sat in a bike basket at the front!

However, the benefits of an AI enabled bike are plentiful. A bicycle that can detect its surroundings could prevent countless accidents by analysing traffic speed and gauging the safety of a manoeuvre. It could project onto the road where the blind spots of large vans and trucks are, so you can clearly see when you’re hidden from a driver. It could seamlessly integrate with other AI enabled vehicles to alert them to your presence. In the event of a serious accident, the bike could automatically call for medical attention.

In the fullness of time, a riderless bicycle would also make the perfect city courier, agile and lightweight with the ability to cut through traffic in the shortest amount of time.

Batteries are also becoming smaller and lighter, and a solar charger or dynamo could mitigate the need for regular charging. Anti-theft technology could make it so frustrating to steal a bike or its components, that it isn’t even worth doing.

Although individual consumers may not be the first customers for this product due to potentially high initial price points and adolescent technology, AI enabled bicycles could be entering the mainstream relatively soon. I can certainly see courier companies investing in a fleet, city bike hire schemes could also be a potential customer. Hopefully once the technology develops to a point where an individual consumer chooses to invest, we’ll start to see plenty more on our roads.