[jib]

The dummy in no way looks human in the context I’d expect a self driving system to have. Humans don’t have a way to move their legs back and forth that way while remaining stationary (unless on a treadmill I suppose).

You can infer that it is meant to represent a human, and thus likely to move across a crossing, but there’s no reason to expect a computer to read it as a human right?

The most obvious characteristic is distinctly not human (Legs don’t work that way), so it looks like some weird windmill, or one of those hot air moving men.

[me_me_me]

Yeah true, only cars and humans are allowed to be on roads.

Everything else is magically repelled away. Like debris, crashed cars that don't look like cars, animals, stuff that fell of that truck, a soccer ball kicked from nearby field...

[jib]

Your attitude seems pretty bad.

I don’t think that was the point I was making at all.

This seems exactly like a case where computer algorithms would function worse than humans. It is not surprising (to me) that those exist.

For instance, put a sign that flashes “Skydivers will land 100m in front of you in about 5s, break now” and human beings will have 100% success rate in avoiding it, and computers will not. (Or any other situation that relies on written communication that is not usually used on the road).

There’s plenty of situations where human ability will perform better than computer models (and vice versa).

[me_me_me]

I think you are being too generous with what a self driving car should be able to do.

If you were moving a house and was caring a big box across a street. Its not unreasonable to expect that you will be able safely make it across the street, even though you don't look exactly like a normal pedestrian.

And it is not unreasonable to expect a self driving car to break if there is any type of a obstacle in their path, especially if not classified. We are not talking about some wacky scenario. A bird might be flying across a street at windshield level. A ball might be kicked onto the street. A hey-bale might falloff onto the street from a tractor driving ahead. A huge box with legs is crossing a street.

I am not expecting a child to be hiding behind a parked car jumping out in front of incoming car to be a scenario that anyone could catch.

My question is why those car dont break when there is object infront of the?

[lowmagnet]

Throw a dummy in a powered wheelchair. Surely the car isn't biased against wheelchairs. Or put a pendulating dummy in crutches. Or one that walks with a Duchenne Gait (as in muscular dystrophy) There are dozens of situations where humans don't "walk like humans" and your bias is showing if you only account for "normal" gaits.

[wrsh07]

Do you think it's fine to hit things that don't correctly get categorized as human? Like maybe someone on crutches?

[jtsiskin]

Yes, this sounds straight out of a dystopian future novel. Missing an arm or leg? You will be hit. Extremely short or tall? Hit Walk with a limp? Hit Pink hair? Hit

[me_me_me]

Why does it matter though? Its an obstacle. When would you want to hit and obstacle anyhow? (Ok I can think of few but, no need for dark humour)

[wrsh07]

1) I'm not joking. I think the OP legitimately didn't think about the humans that don't look like they expect them to look. That's a huge problem across all of tech - not just our lack of imagination about the wide array of human experience, but us assuming that we have thought of everyone when we clearly haven't

2) I think this part gets trickier How do you tell an AI not to do irreversible things? How do you indicate that this is a plastic bag blowing across the street and it needn't cause a traffic jam, but that is a plastic tarp hanging off a barricade that we can't drive through?

How do I indicate that this is a piece of cardboard we can drive over but that is a human person wearing a Halloween costume made of cardboard?

It's not an easy task, and I'm very sympathetic to the very real technical challenge they're facing

[simongr3dal]

I wouldn’t my car to drive into a wheeled mannequin rolling onto the street either.

[phdelightful]

I'd expect a car with an automatic braking system to automatically brake when a "weird windmill" or "one of those hot air moving men" moves predictably to intersect its path.

[VikingCoder]

I don't care if it looks like a box or a goat. I'd expect an Automatic Breaking System to not hit it.