SoylentNews

This interview by Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613399/the-three-challenges-keeping-cars-from-being-fully-autonomous/ [technologyreview.com] appears to be reasoned and sensible, unlike most of the hype of autonomous-cars-revolutionizing-transportation that has been common the last several years.

...In the US, the current car fatality rate is about one death per 1 million hours of driving. Without drunk driving or texting, the rate probably decreases by a factor of 10. Effectively that means a self-driving car’s perception system should fail, at an absolute maximum, once in every 10 million hours of driving.
But currently the best driving assistance systems incorrectly perceive something in their environment once every tens of thousands of hours, Shashua says. “We’re talking about a three-orders-of-magnitude gap.” ...

The second challenge is to build a system that can make reasonable decisions, such as how fast to drive and when to change lanes. But defining what constitutes “reasonable” is less a technical challenge than a regulatory one,... it has to make a trade-off between safety and usefulness. “I can be completely safe if I don’t drive or if I drive very slowly,” he says, “but then I’m not useful, and society will not want those vehicles on the road.”

The last challenge is to create a cost-effective car.... with the technology still at tens of thousands of dollars, only a ride-hailing business will be financially sustainable. ... But individual consumers would probably not pay a premium over a few thousand dollars for the technology.

I've made the case here on SN that unimpaired human drivers should be the safety target for self-driving cars. Turns out that looking at it this way agrees with my gut feelings, humans aren't all that bad. Nice to have some rough numbers to think about.

Original Submission