This is the first of a series of articles showing concrete applications of data science and AI in our every day life.

While the technology is still being developed, self-driving cars are definitely the future of transportation. How does it work? Computer vision, a subset of AI that enables machines to interpret visual data, is used to help the car “see” the world around it and make decisions based on what it sees.
Deep learning models are used for this task. A deep learning model is a neural network, a type of AI model, that has been trained using large sets of data to learn how to perform a task, such as recognizing objects in digital images and videos.
For instance, self-driving cars need to be able to identify obstacles and other objects while driving. Object detection is used to find other vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs, and other obstacles on the road for safety reasons. This information is then used by the car to navigate the road safely and efficiently.
A current application of computer vision for self-driving cars is lane detection. The car 'sees' the lane lines and this information is used by the car’s control system to keep the car centered in its lane.
While still in development, we will see great advances in this technology during the next few years!