> The passengers do not allow the pedestrians to live or die. It's the pedestrians who allow the passengers to drive around among them in the first place. All vehicles must therefore protect pedestrians first.
I disagree. The car knows there are human passengers. The car does not know that obstacles it detects outside of it are necessarily people and not, say, fire hydrants (although it may have a probabilistic estimate of their "peopleness"). Therefore it should prioritize the lives that it knows are actual people.
Clipping a fire hydrant could be part of a legitimate strategy to emergency-stop. Clipping a pedestrian wouldn't be. A self-driving car needs to know the difference.
> Clipping a fire hydrant could be part of a legitimate strategy to emergency-stop. Clipping a pedestrian wouldn't be. A self-driving car needs to know the difference.
No, this is not a choice a car would have to make. A self-driving car would simply never drive into pedestrian-only zones. The only time pedestrians and other obstacles are an issue is in the driving lane, and the only sensible course of action is to brake and veer within the confines of the driving lane, and nowhere else. These are in fact the rules of the road.
Is it really driving at that point then, or is momentum just carrying it? "Apply brakes" seems like the only thing it can realistically do in that scenario.
So to you there is no difference between a fire hydrant, a human being and a paper bag? I mean, it is quite obvious that those, as obstacles, are not the same. A fire hydrant is stationary a human isn't and a paper bag can simply be ignored by the car. Do you really think that a paper bag should be treated the same by a self driving car as a fire hydrant because that is what you are saying.
A human bent over tying their shoe is quite stationary.
> and a paper bag can simply be ignored by the car.
Not relevant. Suppose I provided you with a self-driving car that couldn't differentiate a walking person from a paper bag carried on the wind, and yet I also provided convincing evidence that this car would reduce traffic fatalities and injuries by 30%.
That's the real question we're facing, and the real standard of evidence that must be met, so your suggestion that the inability of this car to differentiate things in the ways you think are important is simply irrelevant.
> A human bent over tying their shoe is quite stationary.
Indeed and after the human finishes tying his shoe he steps on to the road. A human driver and a self driving car that can differentiate between different kinds of obstacles would adjust their speed in such a situation.
> Not relevant. Suppose I provided you with a self-driving car that couldn't differentiate a walking person from a paper bag carried on the wind, and yet I also provided convincing evidence that this car would reduce traffic fatalities and injuries by 30%.
> That's the real question we're facing, and the real standard of evidence that must be met, so your suggestion that the inability of this car to differentiate things in the ways you think are important is simply irrelevant.
You said that an obstacle is an obstacle so it is clearly relevant. Your car wouldn't ignore the paper bag. Would you use a car that treats every obstacle as if it were a human? Slowing down by every tree/fire hydrant/road sign... imagine getting in to the car that is parked under a tree in autumn and leaves are falling down. The car won't start because an obstacle is an obstacle, as you say. Would you wait for the wind to remove the paper bag from the road or would you leave the car to remove it yourself?
If you need to come up with impossible scenarios to justify your claim maybe you should rethink your claim.
Objects in the driving lane are obstacles, objects not in the driving lane are not. Signs, trees and fire hydrants are typically not in the driving lane, therefore they are not typically problems. Obstacles in the driving lane should trigger the car to slow down and approach more cautiously, regardless of what they are. This isn't complicated and doesn't require any impossible scenarios.
> Objects in the driving lane are obstacles, objects not in the driving lane are not. Signs, trees and fire hydrants are typically not in the driving lane, therefore they are not typically problems.
> Obstacles in the driving lane should trigger the car to slow down and approach more cautiously, regardless of what they are. This isn't complicated and doesn't require any impossible scenarios.
A human can in one moment be next to the driving lane and in the next moment on the driving lane so the speed should be adjusted when an obstacle in the form of a human being isn't on the driving lane.
Also, what about the paper bag on the driving lane? Would you wait in the care until a gust of wind takes it of the road or would you go out and remove it yourself?
I disagree. The car knows there are human passengers. The car does not know that obstacles it detects outside of it are necessarily people and not, say, fire hydrants (although it may have a probabilistic estimate of their "peopleness"). Therefore it should prioritize the lives that it knows are actual people.