Sure they are trivial issues, but... do I want my car damaged because it recognized a small animal as more important than some parts on my car? So now somebody (legislative) decides what animals are allowed to be run over, which can't, etc. It's all of these things that lead me to believe we won't see any real self-driving cars in prime-time. There are a lot of different stimuli that need to be filtered for importance and priority. How does the computer respond when something isn't set up as expected? For example there are some places where stop signs or yields have twisted around. As a human, I can make the judgement based on other objects that I expect that the stop sign is for me or for traffic going the way. I don't even need to be familiar with the area, most people just get it. Will the computer tell me car to come to a stop every time it sees something possibly about to cross paths with it? I know with about 95% certainty that the backhoe that is backing up is going to stop and not hit me. Is my car going to freak out and preemptively stop despite there being no serious risk?
If an autonomous car has to stop and check with the driver constantly it is going to be unbearable. You might say that signs will be programmed in to correlate with the GPS, but as many who have travelled the transcanada, construction is constant, signage and speed limits change, there are front loaders coming precariously close. Can the car navigate the pylons that are set up or obey the flagspeople? Now, let's say I am drunk and being driven by the car. What happens in that case? I just paid $$$ for this car to make sure I can get home from parties - how does this situation get solved?
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