Both the world is just not prepared for self-driving vehicles, or self-driving vehicles are usually not prepared for the world. After all of the avoidable crashes and accidents in 2023 — a few of which had been deadly — I’m going to say that it’s the latter reasonably than the previous. Autonomous autos are clearly not prepared to be used on public roads the place different motorists and pedestrians current frequent and distinctive issues that AVs have proven they’re unequipped to unravel.
Self-driving vehicles, be they robotaxis from Waymo or Cruise, or private autos fitted with such techniques as Tesla’s Autopilot, have turned out to be woefully unprepared for the actual world the place nothing conforms to fastened parameters.
Sure, computer systems are sensible. However self-driving autos show how remarkably dumb computer systems may be; they’re repositories of data which might be good at indexing however suck at contextualizing. The poor issues are unable to synthesize disparate information, which is how people can differentiate between a child and a visitors cone.
In different phrases, computer systems and the self-driving tech they’ve yielded can’t see the forest for the timber. All of that apart, I’ve by no means understood the enchantment of a self-driving automobile. I like to drive. I need to drive. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be in a automobile in any respect. Totally different strokes, I suppose. Even if you’re in favor of self-driving vehicles, the next stories of all of the accidents and regulatory woes AVs had been concerned in all through 2023 ought to offer you pause.