I think if I was going to ride in a self-driving car I'd want it designed like a hard realtime system where it is guaranteed to sample the road at X rate or whatever. Most of the time it won't matter at all and doing something adaptive would be fine.
But when the cameras go out completely (or get blinded or whatever) then you could end up with a really degenerate case where the software can't keep up with the car's motion and it freaks out and crashes (literally or figuratively).
Prior to suggesting that this couldn't happen, or would be extremely unlikely to happen, please remember the results of the Toyota "unintended acceleration" investigation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643204
But when the cameras go out completely (or get blinded or whatever) then you could end up with a really degenerate case where the software can't keep up with the car's motion and it freaks out and crashes (literally or figuratively).
Prior to suggesting that this couldn't happen, or would be extremely unlikely to happen, please remember the results of the Toyota "unintended acceleration" investigation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643204