[nitrogen]

It depends on where you are driving in the US, but I've had kids run out in front of me at least twice in suburban areas (stopped in plenty of time). One was the TV classic beach ball appearing from behind a parked car, with a toddler not far behind.

Do self driving systems know that "ball" means "kid"?

[iams]

What people forget with self driving cars is that they don't have to always go at the speed limit.

I love taking trains rather than driving, I can put all my attention on netflix or reading a book. Sometimes the train goes at 100mph sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it stops for 5 minutes, sometimes it just continues slowly at 10mph. At first you find it annoying when a train appears to stop for no reason for a few minutes before continuing, but after it happening a few times, you get used to it, stop noticing and stop caring.

Self driving cars can do the same. It's ok for a car to slow down to 5mph when there are hazards, it's ok for a car to go fast when there aren't. The car doesn't need to know that "ball" means "kid" if, every time it sees a ball or a plastic bag or a puddle, it slows down to 5mph and continues at that speed until it's sure there is no more hazard.

Humans are very bad a driving. They treat the speed limit as a target rather than a ceiling. I live on a road with 2 schools, the speed limit is 30mph and yet many people drive much closer to 40mph past children walking to school. I'd be willing to bet big money that it's much more likely that that impatient driver driving at 40mph is going to hit a child than a self driving car that changes its speed according to the current situation.

[enkid]

This is a great poitlnt, and a good driver would do the same things ng. If there's an unknown hazard, you slow down to make sure it isn't going to cause a problem. Self driving cars can have the same behaviour programmed in.

[bryanlarsen]

But they won't, because for acceptance they'll be programmed to drive "naturally", which means at or above the speed limit, following too closely, et cetera.

The standard complaint for an under-developed L2/L4 system is that it's too timid, it slams on the brakes for a paper blowing in the wind, et cetera.

A car that can avoid hitting a paper blowing in the wind is a car that can avoid hitting a child. Maybe we should just accept a high number of false positives.