[benjohnson]

We will need better-than-vision to drive safely - whiteness all the humans that pile up in multi-car crashes when it gets foggy or snowing.

Lidar, or something like it, will have to be part of the equation given that the best visual processing computers of all time (human brains) don’t get enough data from their systems to make good choices in bad weather.

[VBprogrammer]

Wouldn't the simple solution here to limit speed such that it can stop within the distance that can be seen to be clear ahead? I mean this is exactly how you are supposed to drive but few actually do (which leads to perverse situations where you have to drive faster than you safely can to avoid someone driving into the back of you at 70mph in heavy fog).

[cameldrv]

This is essentially impossible. Just for starters you’d never be able to pass another car in the opposite lane or pass a pedestrian standing near the curb at any reasonable speed. You’re forced to assume the other guy won’t suddenly do something crazy.

[VBprogrammer]

I think making inferences about what the rational actors you know of will do is quite a different problem to dealing with situations where there is a limit to what you can see e.g. fog or a corner for that matter.

[cameldrv]

My point is that in an overwhelming number of situations, it's not sufficient to merely identify the locations and possible trajectories of all of the moving objects. If you assume everyone will act "rationally", you will end up killing someone every few days. If you assume everyone will do the worst possible thing, you'll never get anywhere.

This situation forces you to predict behavior reasonably accurately. There's a big not-so-long tail of people doing stupid things. If you drive in a bar area late at night, you will fairly often encounter drunk people in the street. You may notice some swerving on the road or walking erratically and infer that they might be distracted or drunk or a small child and give them a lot of extra room.

Human drivers typically develop something of a sixth sense observing people on the road and know who it's safe to drive past at high speed and who needs lower speed and more room. If humans didn't have this, the road would be a lot more dangerous.

AVs can compensate for this by having (potentially) faster reaction times, and sensors that can see longer distances. There are a lot of scenarios though where better prediction is more important than either of these. Behavior prediction is a very active area of research in the AV world.

[sliken]

Heh, indeed, and is why there's huge pileups when it's slightly surprisingly wet, slippery, icy, foggy, etc.

Clearly if people drove for conditions you would not have giant pileups when the weather changes.

[verdverm]

Note both Waymo and Tesla have sensor fusion systems. I believe both are using CV and (ultrasonic?) radar, Waymo is additionally including Lidar.

https://thelastdriverlicenseholder.com/2020/03/04/waymo-reve...

[sliken]

Tesla uses CV, radar, and ultrasonic. But ultrasonic is just for parking type measurements, up to 36" or so.

Tesla did just apply for approval to use 60-64 GHz band for radar, not clear to me how that will change the range/performance they get from the sensors.

[Someone]

You don’t need lidar to make the good choice to slow down significantly in a snowstorm or to not drive the car at all when you encounter a heavy one.

I also doubt human brains are the best at visual processing. Certainly at subtasks, quite a few animals are better.

In particular, I would think the night vision of nocturnal animals are better at that “detecting cars in a snow storm” task than middle-aged humans wearing not quite correct glasses.

[bpodgursky]

> (human brains) don’t get enough data from their systems to make good choices in bad weather

Why is your bar for deploying self-driving cars "far better than human performance"? We let people drive in bad conditions.

[verdverm]

Ascribing fault and insurance claims are some likely reasons it will take better than human performance

[dogma1138]

No it won’t, insurance doesn’t need better than human performance it just needs to be able to quantify the risk and price their policy accordingly.

If there is no driver it’s already lowers the risk even at as good as a human capability because you remove one potential human casualty from the equation when it comes ride services.

If AVs are going to be slightly better at causing fewer pedestrian casualties then it reduces the risk even further.

And even if the premiums are more expensive because of higher risk the question will be are they $30-50K which is the “salary” you would have to pay a full time driver at a minimum in the west these days a year more expensive.

If Uber will have to pay $20-30K per car per year in insurance it will still be cheaper for them than to use drivers. And that’s at about 10 times the average care insurance cost right now.