But as this accident shows, that's still an easier problem: if there an object in your lane on the freeway, you should pretty much always avoid it. On a city street, it's more difficult to decide which objects should or shouldn't be ignored.
Autonomous cars have an advantage here compared to even the best human drivers - a persistent 360 degree awareness of the surrounding.
If an object appears on the road, the autonomous vehicle can easily calculate whether it's safe to steer left, or right, or hit the breaks. A human will make a roughly random choice.
> Autonomous cars have an advantage here compared to even the best human drivers - a persistent 360 degree awareness of the surrounding.
Autonomous cars don't have an advantage because they don't exist. They may have an advantage one day when they are finally ready (but that may always be 5 years away)
> If an object appears on the road, the autonomous vehicle can easily calculate whether it's safe to steer left, or right, or hit the breaks. A human will make a roughly random choice.
Even with a 360 degree view, it still has to recognize the object, classify it correctly and make a decision. All tasks which are difficult for a computer to perform reliably enough to be allowed on a public road.
The Uber car had a 360 degree view but it still ran over Elaine Hertzberg, and as far as we know didn't even stop after it hit her. The Tesla Autopilot has 360 degree view but still tends to crash into barriers, tractor trailers, street sweeping trucks and fire trucks.
