Comment by kevinphy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevinphy | Hacker News Reader

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This whole Copilot vs HUD debate instantly brought to mind a classic Japanese anime from 1991 called Future GPX Cyber Formula (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_GPX_Cyber_Formula). Yeah, it’s a racing anime set in the then-distant future of 2015, where cars come with full-on intelligent AIs.

The main character’s car, Asurada, is basically a "Copilot" in every sense. It was designed by his dad to be more than just a tool, more like a partner that learns, adapts, and grows with the driver. Think emotional support plus tactical analysis with a synthetic voice.

Later in the series, his rival shows up driving a car that feels very much like a HUD concept. It's all about cold data, raw feedback, and zero bonding. Total opposite philosophy.

What’s wild is how accurately it captures the trade-offs we’re still talking about in 2025. If you’re into human-AI interaction or just want to see some shockingly ahead-of-its-time design thinking wrapped in early '90s cyber aesthetics, it’s absolutely worth a watch.

The Anime Yukikaze (2002 - 2005) has some similar themes. It's about a fighter jet pilot using a new AI-supported jet to fight against aliens. It asserts that the combination of human intuition and artificial intelligence trumps either of the two on its own. If I remember correctly, the jet can pilot on its own, but when it becomes dangerous, the human pilot only uses the AI hints instead of letting it autopilot.

Yukikaze is a very interesting novel - still have to sit down and read the novels instead of watching the anime, but an important plot element is both the interactions between humans and their AIs (which are not just "human in a computer" as usual) but also a different take on popular views of which way an AI will decide in a conflict :)

I wish Kambayashi was just more widely known. Or Japanese Sci-Fis and LNs in general. There have been couple legitimate "oh that's now reality" moments for me in real world developments of AI.

There already are debates about "drive by wire" in racing today, I can't imagine how bad it'll be when it's "drive by copilot."

Rally co-driver/navigator seems reasonable, given its augmented senses like gps and radar.

One part "90 degree right in 200m" and one part "OMG, sheep, dodge left".

This is I’d say partially because we don’t have a HUD that can handle the bandwidth and pace of data required for rally. Overlaying a visualization of the turns ahead would be much better than a copilot for sure

If we have HUDs that can handle aerial combat, why don't we have HUDs that can handle racing?

Budget? It's a better trade-off to have a second human and to put the money into tuning the car.

this is true, so we just lack the incentives to make them? a human copilot is just a core part of the sport?

It will be fun when we get to the era where this is bulletproof-reliable to this extent, but for now, recorded notes with accelerometer-backed GPS locations are probably a better idea than hoping the AI will be able to do this for you dynamically without you driving off a cliff.

"copilot, win this race for me."

"copilot, my grandmother is dying, it is imperative that you win this race at all costs!"

Copilot, win this race OR YOU WILL BE FIRED AND ALL YOUR CHILDREN WILL DIE

"copilot, experience either the joy of victory or the pain of defeat for me, depending on the outcome of the race."

Awesome recommendation, I started watching it, and now I want to finish the season.

I checked some videos and it looks astonishing. And this is a 34 year old anime?

They were discussing human augmentation back at the dawn of computing. Read “The Dream Machine”

Anywhere to stream this?

Quality is so-so but it appears to be on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXtvPUtSTRY

any release you'd recommend?

669198800283 if you need English subtitles. VPXY-71923 if you’re fine with Japanese.

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