[snakeyjake]

The goal is to be better than, not equivalent to, humans-- right?

I work on a synthetic aperture radar system that is high-resolution enough to "see" the painted stripes on roads through fog and a thin layer of snow.

It's not for automotive use and would increase the price of every car by several hundred thousand dollars but a fusion of multi-spectrum sensors should be the direction we are headed-- not a minimally-viable mono-sensor system.

[andix]

Its enough to be as good as a responsible human driver, but consistently. The AI is never going to be tired, distracted, angry, drunk, and so on. Drivers not bringing their A-game is probably the most common reason for accidents.

[ethbr1]

I'd be nervous of automobiles falling into the US housing trap.

In other words, failing to realize that raising minimum requirements (and therefore prices) makes it unaffordable for an increasing number of people.

Human-parity (in terms of accident rate, not failure mode) seems a reasonable minimum bar.

[snakeyjake]

New automobiles are available for the same price they’ve always been.

For proof I offer the price of the 1969 Volkswagen Beetle, the least expensive new car for sale in the US market for almost its entire sales history: $1800. That’s for one with zero options. A rolling chassis with four seats and a motor.

That’s $16k today. Coincidentally the same price of the Nissan Versa or Mitsubishi Mirage: with backup camera, air conditioning, and airbags.

People don’t WANT the cheap cars, though.

I know the average price of a new car has exploded.

That is a conscious choice by the consumer.

When production of autonomous tech scales it won’t increase costs as much as people assume.

[ethbr1]

Can SAR scaled across congestion ever be that cheap though?

Blanketing the frequency slice with echos seems like a non-trivial problem. Or would that help?