{"id":244210,"date":"2026-05-12T05:47:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T09:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T06:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T10:00:08","slug":"self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-driving cars struggle to see at night or in fog \u2013 but imitating the human brain can make them safe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe-282284\">Self-driving cars struggle to see at night or in fog \u2013 but imitating the human brain can make them safe<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe-282284\">https:\/\/theconversation.com\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe-282284<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-12 05:47:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"theconversation.com\">theconversation.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Picture this: you\u2019re driving on a mountain road, when you suddenly hit a thick patch of fog. You respond instinctively. Your vision sharpens, and you narrow your eyes to make out the shape of any oncoming cars. <\/p>\n<p>Human beings handle these quick changes very well, but if it were a self-driving car \u2013 at least one with a current artificial intelligence (AI) system behind the wheel \u2013 things could easily end in disaster.<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s AI vision systems are extremely accurate when visibility is good. On a clear, sunny day a self-driving car can recognise pedestrians, road signs and other vehicles with precision. However, they are extremely vulnerable to environmental changes. If it rains, or gets dark or foggy, standard AI systems become blind, incapable of detecting obstacles that a human driver would spot with ease.<\/p>\n<p>Our research at the University of Valencia proposes a possible solution: instead of exposing AI models to millions of images of every possible road condition, we decided to imitate biology. But biologically speaking, why can humans see so well under such a wide range of conditions?<\/p>\n<p>    <strong><br \/>\n      Read more:<br \/>\n      Human vision: what we actually see \u2013 and don\u2019t see \u2013 tells us a lot about consciousness<br \/>\n    <\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>The brain\u2019s \u2018volume control\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>In our brains, neurons do not work alone. They use a truly fascinating form of adaptation that neuroscientists call divisive normalisation.<\/p>\n<p>To understand this (without getting into mathematics) we can picture it as an automated \u201cvolume control\u201d system, with neurons working in a team. Let\u2019s say one neuron is looking at a very dark area of the field of vision, such as a black car at night. The neighbouring neurons turn up the \u201cvolume\u201d of this weak signal, amplifying the small details to make them more visible. <\/p>\n<p>If we look at a bright light, the same thing happens in reverse. The brain turns down the volume to prevent us from being dazzled.<\/p>\n<p>This mechanism is what allows us to adapt and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/self-driving-cars-struggle-to-see-at-night-or-in-fog-but-imitating-the-human-brain-can-make-them-safe-282284\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Self-driving cars struggle to see at night or in fog \u2013 but imitating the human&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/734226\/original\/file-20260429-57-6e2mst.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C274%2C2400%2C1200&q=45&auto=format&w=1356&h=668&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-244210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244215,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244210\/revisions\/244215"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}