[tfourb]

That's actually categorically false. We also use sophisticated hearing, a well developed sense of inertia and movement, air pressure, impact, etc. And we can swivel our heads to increase our coverage of vision to near 360°, while using very dependable and simple technology like mirrors to cover the rest. Add to that that our vision is inherently 3D and we sport a quite impressive sensor suite ;-). My guess is that the fidelity and range of the sensors on a Tesla can't hold a candle to the average human driver. No idea how LIDAR changes this picture, but it sure is better than vision only.

I think there is a good chance that what we currently call "AI" is fundamentally not technologically capable of human levels of driving in diverse conditions. It can support and it can take responsibility in certain controlled (or very well known) environments, but we'll need fundamentally new technology to make the jump.

[ACCount37]

Yes, human vision is so bad it has to rely on a swivel joint and a set of mirrors just to approximate 360 coverage.

Modern cars can have 360 vision at all times, as a default. With multiple overlapping camera FoVs. Which is exactly what humans use to get near field 3D vision. And far field 3D vision?

The depth-discrimination ability of binocular vision falls off with distance squared. At far ranges, humans no longer see enough difference between the two images to get a reliable depth estimate. Notably, cars can space their cameras apart much further, so their far range binocular perception can fare better.

How do humans get that "3D" at far distances then? The answer is, like it usually is when it comes to perception, postprocessing. Human brain estimates depth based on the features it sees. Not unlike an AI that was trained to predict depth maps from a single 2D image.

If you think that perceiving "inertia and movement" is vital, then you'd be surprised to learn that an IMU that beats a human on that can be found in an average smartphone. It's not even worth mentioning - even non-self-driving cars have that for GPS dead reckoning.

[pixl97]

I mean, technically what we need is fast general intelligence.

A lot of the problems with driving aren't driving problems. They are other people are stupid problems, and nature is random problems. A good driver has a lot of ability to predict what other drivers are going to do. For example people commonly swerve slightly on the direction they are going to turn, even before putting on a signal. A person swerving in a lane is likely going to continue with dumb actions and do something worse soon. Clouds in the distance may be a sign of rain and that bad road conditions and slower traffic may exist ahead.

Very little of this has to do with the quality of our sensors. Current sensors themselves are probably far beyond what we actually need. It's compute speed (efficiency really) and preemption that give humans an edge, at least when we're paying attention.