[kylebyproxy]

I don't understand why this part isn't talked about more. Seems like an elephant in the room to me.

Have most people just not encountered confusing road conditions?

A couple weeks ago, I was in West Virginia bobbing up and down hills around hairpin turns on loose gravel. The whole time, I was thinking to myself "The first autonomous vehicle that attempts this route is going straight into the ravine."

One time evacuating from a hurricane, the route I found required me to drive through an open field. How well does LIDAR cope with tall grass?

Another time, I'm headed north on I-95 and there's a several car pileup. Police divert all traffic off the nearest exit and close the highway with a few road flares. I'd wager anything an AV would blow right past the flares and wreak havoc on the scene of the accident.

Until AI can cope with completely novel scenarios it was never trained for, it's going to be prone to catastrophic failure.

Personally, I don't expect to see it in our lifetimes.

[NegativeK]

> bobbing up and down hills around hairpin turns on loose gravel

They slow down. Tesla's dumbest form of automation will slow down more than a human when encountering a turn.

> How well does LIDAR cope with tall grass?

It stops and demands help. While car automation leans on GPS/nav, it won't blindly follow it -- similar to (almost all) humans.

I wouldn't want to risk anything near a vehicle accident on the road, though. But the situation is not _as_ bad as you might think.