Electricity gallops through 6,000 tubes, room temperature rises as the machine continues to run, and in a room filled with a supercomputer, programmers eagerly expect it to automatically output calculations accurately. Almost as soon as data is entered, numbers and symbols are rapidly converted into results by modern binary electronic computers. At this moment, a reliable and efficient electronic computer was born, and the wheel of human civilization was quietly embedded in a new track.
This type of computer, which evolved rapidly during the period of the US-Soviet hegemony, together with atomic energy technology, space technology, and bioengineering technology, set off the third industrial revolution that lasted for decades. Among them, a series of changes brought about by electronic computers have most profoundly and directly changed the face of society.
In this revolution, programmers indirectly participated in the transformation of the old world through code, and became one of the groups that people gradually paid attention to. In casual jokes, programmers are gradually labeled with various labels: rigid, otaku, straight men, plaid shirts, and quarreling with product managers every day…
Today, autonomous driving is expected to become a new mode of travel for humans. While reshaping transportation, four practitioners from an autonomous driving company in Shenzhen wanted to talk about their lives and jobs, so that the outside world could see their true appearance.
Front-end engineer who finished 200km marathon
Every weekend along the Dasha River in Shenzhen, people can always see a team running in the morning light. The man running at the front of the team is named Li Wei. He is one of the founding members of the largest marathon club in South China and is also a front-end engineer.
Liwei in training (first from right)
Before long-distance running, Li Wei’s favorite sport was hiking. When he was still in school in Beijing, his roommate asked Shang Liwei to climb the wild mountains around Beijing together. Liwei, who was the first contact with hiking, agreed without much thought, and followed his roommate into the mountains without any equipment. There are many dangers and insects on the mountain road, so he naturally has to walk more difficult, and suffers a lot of losses without equipment. But he believes that he was like a newborn calf with a sense of ignorance. He still did not take the preparation equipment in mind for the following hikes. Once, he and his friends climbed Mount Wutai, and several people walked for two days.
After graduating and starting work, the outgoing and lively Li Wei met more people with different hobbies and discovered a bigger world. At the invitation of his colleagues, he ran together in the Olympic Forest Park to challenge the more difficult marathon.
Different from walking, long-distance running has higher requirements on participants’ physical fitness, equipment supply, and rhythm adjustment. Li Wei began to study pre-competition training and communicate with runners about the precautions of the race. After learning more about sports, he was afraid of entering the barren mountain without any equipment.
Li Wei participated in the marathon for the first time and chose the 21-kilometer half-marathon. He used the race as a motivation to force himself to train and improve his long-distance running ability, and spent a week training before the race. Although he thought the race was not too difficult, he was still very happy to finish the race, which was the first milestone in his long-distance running career for him.
Liwei has been in long-distance running for five years. He has participated in marathons of various sizes all over the country. The whole course of the competition has gradually increased from 21 kilometers to 100 kilometers and 200 kilometers, and the length of the competition has been extended to more than 20 hours. In order to finish the race within the stipulated time, he often ran for more than ten hours without eating or sleeping like other runners. I was really sleepy, so I put on my jacket and slept on the ground. When I was hungry, I ran to the next supply station.
It is a very lucky thing to successfully complete the game. More often, Li Wei encounters various emergencies.
Li Wei often encounters sudden changes in the weather during the competition. He clearly remembered a marathon held in Hangzhou. After running for more than ten hours, he entered the mountain area. Due to the huge physical consumption, his thigh muscles kept shaking. At this time, he was hungry and tired. Unfortunately, it rained heavily at night and the temperature was bone-chilling. He was shocked to find that his whole body was shivering, and his consciousness began to blur. This was a manifestation of extremely dangerous hypothermia. What’s worse, his feet were covered with blisters after running for a long time, and every step of the run came with excruciating pain. Fortunately, his journey was going down the mountain. Driven by the instinct of survival, he gritted his teeth and stepped on his feet full of blisters to continue to the finish line.
Before the event closed, Liwei completed 200 kilometers of off-road
The marathon is not so much a test of runners’ physical strength as it is a struggle of willpower. Fatigue, hunger, and injury are the norm for marathon runners. Many people are so sleepy that they become confused after running for a long time, and only their legs move mechanically. Once, Li Wei ran a distance in a chaotic state of his brain because he was too tired. After regaining consciousness, he suddenly found himself running to the edge of a cliff.
Although Liwei believes that none of the marathons he participated in was successful, he still loves long-distance running. He saw the mountains and plains, met friends from all over the world, and heard many interesting stories. Sometimes, he also received unexpected surprises along the way. In 2021, when he participated in the marathon of Tai Mo Shan, the highest peak in Hong Kong, he met the Hong Kong star Zhang Yunfa who was climbing on the way down the mountain, and the two took a photo together.
Of course, he is not only satisfied with this, he also enjoys the thrill of adjusting the staged goals according to the state of the game and realizing them one by one during the game. After completing the self-challenging races, he also reached more milestones. Just like his work in the self-driving startup company, busy and urgent work often fills his time, and he also needs to work according to the work like in the long-distance running competition. Goals, and quantify the needs of colleagues to formulate phased goals, and finally achieve work milestones.
Now, as the team leader of the first team of the Marathon Club, Li Wei will train with his teammates twice a week. Even if he is busy with work, he can still find time to participate in team activities. In his view, this is a test of his energy distribution. Only when he finds a balance between work and sports is his best state.
Product Manager’s Wish: Free and Equal Mobility
Qiuping is a female driver who likes cars, and a product manager who can’t see programmers looking down.
Qiuping entered the auto industry when he was looking for a job after graduating from college. She successively worked in automotive supply chain companies, OEMs and autonomous driving companies, responsible for in-vehicle human-computer interaction products. For Qiuping, this job is not a means of earning a living, but a way of life that he loves.
A large part of Qiuping’s work is to fly to different cities to test drive the latest smart cars and experience the human-computer interaction and assisted driving products of different products. On weekends, she will drive with her friends to the surrounding attractions, go to the 4S store to test drive cars of interest and exchange views with each other. To many of her fellow programmers, it was an “enviable job.”
Only Qiuping knows that this job is not as easy as others seem. Although the content of the job looks interesting, it needs to be rigorous and comprehensive when considering the plan. How to ensure the safety of the product and take into account the comfort is not easy. For a more convenient interactive experience, Qiuping will find interactive innovation points from smart speakers with faster iteration speed and fewer security and privacy issues. She will evaluate each product from dozens of dimensions, and finally deduce the best suitable for the moment. The plan sometimes needs to compromise with limited resources, which is actually a process of bittersweetness.
Some electronic products owned by Qiuping
After working in an autonomous driving startup, one of Qiuping’s most impressive projects was adding accessibility features to the visually impaired. That was the first time she had an in-depth understanding of the world of the visually impaired.
Previously, Qiuping’s understanding of the disabled group came from the children of friends. He unfortunately suffers from congenital hearing impairment, and because he is still very young, he needs to learn to communicate with people through hearing aids. Qiuping found that although the society’s overall care for the disabled group has improved, the daily travel of the disabled group is still inconvenient. Qiuping decided to use the company’s project to make a little change for the travel of disabled groups.
The project first targets visually impaired groups. After completing the accessibility features of the first version of Robotaxi, she invited a group of visually impaired people from the Disabled People’s Federation to experience all the links from making a mini-program appointment, taking the Robotaxi to getting off the bus. Although everyone especially recognized that Robotaxi has brought great help to the travel of the visually impaired, Qiuping received various suggestions on some details, and the number exceeded Qiuping’s expectations. She found that the previous user research is still insufficient, and many needs of the visually impaired have not been met.
They collected feedback suggestions and carefully screened the feasibility of the suggestions with their colleagues. After repeated revisions and rounds of testing, this product has matured a lot. After the vehicle arrives, the taxi mini program on the user’s mobile phone can jump to the walking voice navigation page, helping the visually impaired to walk near the pick-up point where the order was placed, and the vehicle can help the visually impaired user to accurately locate the vehicle through the external speaker. The user enters the car and speaks the tail number of the mobile phone, and the system can automatically verify the user’s identity. After successful verification, the Robotaxi service is started.
Robotaxi with accessibility features
After the product became more mature, Qiuping invited Mo Chuanxi, a piano tuner, to try the product. In April 2021, Mo Chuanxi left a message on the official account of Qiuping’s company, which made the company realize the needs of the visually impaired for autonomous driving, and also contributed to the establishment of the barrier-free project.
During the test ride, Qiuping accompanied him all the way. Mo Chuanxi confided to her that this test ride reminded him of countless taxi refusals he had encountered, and many drivers left when they saw the guide dogs. Sometimes I use my mobile phone to get a taxi, but I can’t find a car on the side of the road at all. “It turned out to be just a fantasy. I have dreamed of this scene many times in my dreams, and finally my dream has come true. Autopilot makes my travel more dignified.” Mo Chuanxi’s words have made Qiuping and hers so far. Colleagues are impressed.
In Qiuping’s view, some barrier-free designs can not only help disabled groups, but also benefit more ordinary users. For example, when a user who has never experienced autonomous driving is looking for a Robotaxi, the Robotaxi, which looks the same as other vehicles, can give a voice prompt to the user, so that the user can find the vehicle more quickly.
“This project is not a utilitarian project, but the whole company agrees with the value of this project. Colleagues in each department are cooperating as always, and all requests, big and small, can be responded to in time.” In the future, Qiuping and colleagues We will also design a friendly self-driving travel experience for more people. She hopes that everyone can enjoy more equal and convenient services in different scenarios.
Programming rushes vintage, programmers not only have plaid shirts
Guan Chao is a simulation engineer. Unlike the stereotypical programmer who likes to wear classic plaid shirts, he likes to search for and trade vintage pieces on various forums and second-hand websites.
Vintage, that is, the clothes that are no longer produced in the second-hand market. Guanchao first came into contact with antiques in 2020. Because of the epidemic lockdown at home, Guanchao browsed many websites and forums after work. One day, Guan Chao accidentally clicked on a well-known second-hand trading website in North America, and was immediately attracted by one of the casual suit jackets produced in 2014. He placed an order with the idea of giving it a try.
After receiving the goods, he found that this suit jacket was very suitable for the season when the temperature difference between morning and evening was large, and the color was also in his mind. This dress not only changed Guanchao’s style of dressing, but also exposed him to different cultural groups.
Guanchao began to learn more about the brands of second-hand clothes and the stories behind them, shared shopping experience and the latest information with friends, and even grabbed some limited-edition styles by writing programs. Many of his vintage collections are from the 1980s, and what attracts Guanchao is the unique design and material. When he put on these clothes that spanned time, he could feel the designer’s hard work on the clothes, and the time seemed to reside on the clothes.
The combination of old clothes and modern people, which spans space and time, interacts with reality and virtuality just like his work.
Part of Guanchao’s Vintage Collection
Guanchao’s daily work is to restore the streets, cars, buildings and other elements in the real world to the maximum extent in the simulation test tool, and constantly let self-driving cars drive in the virtual world to deal with various situations. After countless tests in the virtual world, self-driving cars will promote the upgrade and iteration of self-driving systems in the real world and promote the development of self-driving cars.
Guanchao believes that the real world may have boundaries, but technology will definitely make the real world more possible. He still remembers that in the AR class at the university, the teacher designed many feature points around the campus. Through mobile phones, he and his classmates could see interesting things that could not be seen with the naked eye, such as virtual signs guiding the direction of gourmet restaurants.
That class changed Guanchao’s perception of the world and made him decide to engage in work related to AR and VR. After graduating, he turned down a high-paying offer from a major gaming company and worked at an autonomous driving startup for nearly four years. To this day, he is still happy with his decision, because his work is what interests him.
Despite not entering the gaming industry, Guanchao is as concerned about e-sports as many young people. He is an avid player of Dota 2. He said: “I have been waiting for the Chinese team to win another world championship. As long as this championship is not won, my youth will not end. I have waited for four years and may continue to wait. down.”
Under the recommendation of Guanchao, the programmer colleagues around him also entered the vintage circle. After get off work, they share music, fitness experiences, and cat-keeping like everyone else. Guan Chao said that even though some programmers like square glasses and plaid shirts, this does not mean that they are rigid, and everyone has their own interests. “If you look closely, you will find that we are actually a very diverse group.”
Breaking gender prejudice, women can also be on their own
“Female classmates are more detailed than male classmates, but their minds are not as smart as male classmates.”
In the process of studying Xu Xu, an engineer, many teachers have said this, but her grades have always been among the best. Compared with liberal arts, she is more interested in science and engineering subjects such as mathematics. Whenever the teacher said these words, she couldn’t understand where the logic of the teacher’s words came from. What made her even more puzzled was that those who said such things were often female teachers.
At the end of the college entrance examination, Xu Xu planned to apply for the major of surveying and mapping out of his interest in mathematics, geometry and other subjects. This decision was opposed by his parents. The reason for the objection was that geographic surveying and mapping are often conducted outdoors, which is more suitable for boys and not suitable for girls. . However, in Xu Xu’s observation, “jobs suitable for boys” means that in a secular sense, it is easier to realize personal social values. In the face of interest, she did not consider which gender is more suitable, and directly applied for the surveying and mapping major that she thought was cooler. In the end, she was admitted to the Wuhan University Surveying and Mapping College, which ranks first in the country.
When Xu Xu graduated with a master’s degree, it was at a new climax of the development of the autonomous driving industry. She studied lidar perception and joined an autonomous driving company as a perception algorithm engineer. She feels more relaxed and flexible in an atmosphere that only pays attention to her ability to work. Here, no one doubts the woman’s ability to work, and she has also become the backbone of the company’s R&D department by successfully completing one project after another.
Xu Xu believes that the coolest moment in her work is the successful launch of the real car after the perception algorithm she participated in the research and development was developed and tested. The process sounds simple, but it actually requires bridging a huge chasm. Xu Xu’s company is known for its leading perception algorithm, but like most engineers, after the algorithm goes online, she will not be satisfied with her current achievements. She can always see the areas that can be improved, and is always enthusiastic to do so. Keep improving.
Xu Xu’s work results will be displayed directly in the car
In Xu Xu’s mind, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a female benchmark she respects. Ginsburg, who has encountered all kinds of discrimination in her life, devoted her life to fighting for the right of women. Even with two cancers and a broken bone, Ginsburg didn’t stop working. In 2020, Ginsburg died of illness, and the White House rarely lowered the flag for a judge. Xu Xu hopes that like Ginsburg, he can engage in the work he loves and work tirelessly for the things he cares about.
On the campus of Yale University, a world-renowned school, there is a sculpture called “The Women’s Table”. On this round table, the number of female students since the establishment of Yale in 1701 is engraved. The numbers range from a series of “0” “Beginning, it was not until 1873 that numbers began to gradually increase from one-digit to two-digit and three-digit numbers. It wasn’t until 1999 that this number surpassed that of men for the first time.
In the past few years of work, Xu Xu has witnessed the rapid development of the company and the continuous advancement of the industry landing process. As a trend-setter in the cutting-edge technology of autonomous driving, she also expects more women to join. Just like the numbers of women on the “women’s table”, she believes that in the future, more and more women will be able to obtain a good education, follow their hearts, and forge their own path.
Imagine the world of autonomous driving
In the autonomous driving industry, it is often easy to see that a certain autonomous driving company has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in financing, the number of test mileage is constantly rising, the trillion-level market, and the promotion of policies…
However, behind the excitement is the silent work of a group of people, and it is also the real life of this group of people. For the future of autonomous driving, they have a more romantic vision:
Li Wei predicts that within ten years, Robotaxi will be seen everywhere in the streets, and it will be able to interact naturally with multi-modalities. In Qiu Ping’s imagination, Robotaxi will be a robot full of autonomous emotions, not just a vehicle. Guanchao believes that in the future, all vehicles can have autonomous driving functions like the car of the protagonist in “I, Robot”. Xu Xu is looking forward to the realization of the intelligent transportation system and the improvement of human travel efficiency again.
No matter what kind of travel imagination in the future, similar keywords can be extracted from it, such as “intelligence”, “convenience” and “equality”.
With different personalities, they are all playing their roles, striving to reach more milestones, constantly exploring products that meet the travel needs of more people, and breaking stereotypes through actions while polishing technology. The future of autonomous driving is also moving towards reality step by step because of their struggles.
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