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Here's yet another reason that (assuming the article is correct) current self-driving technology has a long ways to go before it is ready for large scale roll out in urban areas.
    https://www.autonomousvehicleinternational.com/news/ai-sensor-fusion/ai-research-combats-problem-of-vanishing-cyclists-and-pedestrians.html [autonomousvehicleinternational.com]
More than pattern matching "AI" is needed.

One particularly vexing problem for autonomous driving systems is how to deal with situations where sensors lose sight of other road users. For example, a cyclist dropping out of view behind a car or other obstruction.

Now, researchers at Örebro University in Sweden say they have developed an AI application that can account for such occurrences. “We have succeeded in developing a new way for self-driving vehicles to understand and explain the dynamics of our world just like people do,” said Mehul Bhatt, professor of computer science at the university.

[...]

The researchers noted that in traffic, humans are used to constantly anticipating what will happen next. This reasoning ability is something that current self-driving vehicles and AI systems in general are lacking. In the study, Bhatt, together with colleagues in Germany and India, stated that combining modern neural learning with common-sense reasoning can overcome some of these pitfalls. “The developed AI method results in self-driving vehicles learning to understand the world much like humans. With understanding also comes the ability to explain decisions,” added Bhatt.

[...]

The AI method also enables autonomous vehicles to show why they have made a particular decision in traffic – such as sudden braking. Bhatt stressed, “It is of utmost importance that we do not have non-transparent technologies driving us around that no one fully understands, neither the developers of the AI, nor the manufacturer or engineers of the vehicles themselves. If self-driving cars are to share the same space as people, we need to understand how these cars are making decisions.”

This, too, is critical, not the least in studying accidents, resolving insurance issues and assisting those with special needs. “At the end of the day, standardization is crucial. We need to achieve a shared understanding of the technologies in self-driving cars – as we do with the technologies in airplanes. At the moment, we’re far from it. This will only happen if we fully understand the technologies we’re developing,” noted Bhatt.

Reference the line above:
> ...understand and explain the dynamics of our world just like people do...
Sounds like more hype to me, but maybe these researchers are on to something useful.

Anyone taking bets on the next death from an autonomous car demonstration? My friendly wager is that we'll read about at least one in 2022, probably more. These demo projects are being announced all over the world now.

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