Tesla Rear-Ends Bus On Germany’s Autobahn, Driver Blames Autopilot

[paulkienitz]

9. A self-driving car is like a human who needs glasses driving without them.

Correct decisions during driving depend on understanding what you see. No machine yet made, especially not anything mass-produced, is capable of viewing a scene and rapidly identifying the objects in it. They're moving through a world of vague undefined meaningless shapes. There's no way they can make accurate and sound judgments. They're not going to know that, for instance, kids kicking a ball or a dog chasing a frisbee are far more likely to suddenly intrude into traffic than, say, a mailman stuffing letters or an old lady on a motorized wheelchair is. They're not going to know that footballs take crazy bounces but skunks don't, or why you should not hit the latter. They don't understand that there's a spectrum of mobility in which shopping carts, wheely garbage cans, and lilac bushes all occupy different positions.

Once self-driving cars are "ready", I would still recommend waiting another decade or so before riding in one.