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There's no ensuring either of:
a) It will react to everything that it needs to react to / not react to things that it shouldn't.
b) It will react in the proper way when it does react.
This is the problem.
Like I said if it were all automated drivers on the road, I think we'd have a really amazing safety record. But the problem is that with human drivers and automated drivers on the road, the human drivers are going to do all kinds of stupid shit, and how much of it will be reacted to properly? I don't know.
It seems to me most people on HN significantly underestimate the complexity of solving this problem of automated drivers alongside human ones.
Plus, I am also uncomfortable with training human drivers to just trust the computer and pay no attention to what's going on around them. I think that's the worst outcome of automated drivers.
If you have a 3-dimensional model, with a finite number of axes to move upon, any movement towards the vehicle from another vehicle, no matter what it is, can be enumerated and mathematically modeled.
Once that has been done, it is a matter of programming the autonomous car's probabilistic response to the oncoming collision.
You think that most people significantly underestimate the complexity of solving this problem - I'd argue that, no, figuring out how to maintain satellites in orbit is more difficult than modeling every possible 3-dimension interaction between two, four, or 20 different cars.
No matter what kind of "stupid shit" human drivers do, there's only so much "stupid shit" they can actually perform. It can all be modeled mathematically on a 3-dimensional plane, and thus programmed for.
Is it a complex problem? Yes, assuredly. But your comments are approaching it with what seems to be mild hysteria - it's a basic engineering problem, and all you need to do is model it out. The math is there. It's solid. And I trust math more than I trust human drivers.
