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by threeseed 2225 days ago
Self driving cars can't rapidly move their cameras in multiple spatial directions like humans do on a continuous basis.

Also we have a pattern and object detection computer behind our eyes that nothing on this planet even remotely comes close to.
4 comments
beambot 2225 days ago
People don't have eyes in the back of their heads. Self-driving cars don't get drunk or distracted by cell phones. Comparing humans with AVs is apples & oranges. The only meaningful comparison is in output metrics such as Accidents & Fatalities per mile driven. I'd be receptive to conditioning this metric on the weather... so long as the AV can detect adverse conditions and force a human to take control.
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aeternum 2225 days ago
Chimps have us beat when it comes to short-term visual memory (Humans can't even come close).

Mantis shrimp have us beat when it comes to quickly detecting colors since they have twelve photoreceptors vs. our three.

Insects have us beat when it comes to anything in the UV spectrum (we're completely blind to it). Many insects also cannot move their eyes but are still have to use vision for collision detection and navigation.

Birds have us beat when it comes to visual acuity. Most of them also do not move their eyeballs in spacial directions like we do but still have excellent visual navigation skills.

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nwallin 2225 days ago
Humans have visual processing which converts the signals from our three types of cones into tens to hundreds of millions of shades of color. Mantis shrimp don't have this processing. Mantis shrimp can only see 12 shades.

Human color detection is about six orders of magnitude greater than mantis shrimp's.

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aeternum 2224 days ago
Right, but the theory is that they have us beat when it comes to speed since they are directly sensing the colors whereas we are doing a bunch of post-processing.
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monadgonad 2225 days ago
I think the point was that brains are the best pattern and object detection computers, not necessarily just human brains.
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CamperBob2 2225 days ago
Also we have a pattern and object detection computer behind our eyes that nothing on this planet even remotely comes close to.

Not defending those who say that LIDAR isn't useful/important in self-driving cars, but this assertion is only marginally true today and won't be true at all for much longer. See https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.06969 (2017), for instance.

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varjag 2225 days ago
Humans have about 2° field of sharp vision. Computers with wide angle lenses don't have to oscillate like the eyes do.
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