Good evening Germany - First AI traffic light in Germany

In Germany, there is the first AI-controlled traffic light intersection and I was allowed to be an interview guest on ServusTV, and RTL West as an expert.

But how does the traffic light work?

Strictly speaking, this is not controlled by artificial intelligence: "The traffic light first looks at: What is the bike? And makes a small rectangle around it. What is a truck? It makes a large rectangle. And when it has learned that, it has to remember it, of course. And then there's not much in play with AI. AI in learning and in executing, it's a reliable algorithm."

Thanks to this, pedestrians and cyclists should get the green light faster. The great advantage of this technology is that traffic can be controlled more smoothly. Until now, the traffic lights controlled us and how we drove, and now we can control the technology as we need it. In other words, the devices are coming toward us, and that is also the essence of digitization.

In the future, traffic signals will be able to recognize traffic flows and control traffic accordingly. In large cities, for example, additional lanes can be opened when major events are over or when rush-hour traffic in the morning and evening requires them. Here, AI has major advantages over previous traffic signal technology. Traffic jams are known to be driving instructors for people who believe they can drive better than the AI.

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Worried about data protection?

To control the traffic lights, all road users have to be filmed at great expense. Isn't that a data protection problem now?

Nothing protects our data better than artificial intelligence. Because our secrets are mixed with the secrets of millions of others and then compressed into tiny amounts of data. In the end, there is usually nothing left of privacy-threatening data. This data should not then be forwarded and processed centrally somewhere, but is processed directly in the traffic light and then deleted again.

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The pre-evening magazine: Guten Abend Deutschland impresses with pictures and captivating stories from all regions of the country. With its informative reports, in-depth background information and exciting studio guests (like me), this magazine offers comprehensive insights into the current issues facing Germany. Above all, the focus is on the people and their individual challenges.

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You can read the whole article here

Thank you Bettina Cramer for the pleasant conversation!