I agree, the devil is going to be in the almost infinite edge cases, the visual negotiation that goes on between drivers at box junctions, dealing with bad or aggressive drivers who ignore right of way or tailgate, ethical decisions in all the “Kobiashi Maru” no-win situations (extreme weather, black ice, highway pile up, mechanical failures).
An advanced AI may well be able to identify whether an object coming towards the windscreen is a bird, bat, leaf or a rock, but what will its intuition be about how much of a problem it is likely to be? Should it swerve to avoid a raccoon and risk whiplash for passengers? Should it aim to avoid large insects if the owner is vegan?
Also, people are very used to mild lawbreaking. We expect a cab driver to double park and let us out the car if there are no available parking spaces, but would an AI be authorised to bend the law or would it have to find the nearest parking space, which may be 5 blocks away and could be taken by the time it gets there?
I suspect we will get autonomous drone-like flying cars long before we get full autonomy in city centres or rural areas, because flying through a mostly obstacle-free space with an ability to avoid collisions on 3 axis seems much more reachable?
An advanced AI may well be able to identify whether an object coming towards the windscreen is a bird, bat, leaf or a rock, but what will its intuition be about how much of a problem it is likely to be? Should it swerve to avoid a raccoon and risk whiplash for passengers? Should it aim to avoid large insects if the owner is vegan?
Also, people are very used to mild lawbreaking. We expect a cab driver to double park and let us out the car if there are no available parking spaces, but would an AI be authorised to bend the law or would it have to find the nearest parking space, which may be 5 blocks away and could be taken by the time it gets there?
I suspect we will get autonomous drone-like flying cars long before we get full autonomy in city centres or rural areas, because flying through a mostly obstacle-free space with an ability to avoid collisions on 3 axis seems much more reachable?