Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mentioned this elsewhere, but I'll elaborate- I don't think the detection or reaction time is the problem, it's the concept of useful recognition (and prediction). Is that first movement/deviation (that an AI car can certainly measure sooner than I can see) going to be a swerve within their lane or is the car going to come all the way over? It's not the watching for the trigger, but the intuition of what the trigge…
Is this the 'disconnected lever' problem of AI, applied to vehicle driving? Of course I'm not saying it's magic; there's obviously some kind of signal to our subconscious that we're able to process and make useful. That signal is connected to some much larger dataset of years of human experience - things like what a distracted driver might do, what a tired driver might do, what an old unmaintained vehicle looks like,…
Yes, it's good to know this has a name. Thanks.
This idea, but also extended to include the fact that as AI drives more, humans drive less, and might lose some of that knowledge. If AI is driving 80% if the time, but can't handle 20% of situations, then humans are doing the 20% most difficult driving with 80% less practice. Obviously this is over simplifying things, as lack of fatigue and other things will come into play. But I'm merely stating that both sides of the equation will likely change, not just one.
>Still, AI cars which don't tailgate...ENORMOUS safety advantage
As long as they do this in a way that doesn't create congestion, I agree. But I'm not yet convinced. Overly conservative driving can be just as, if not more dangerous than some aggressive driving.
A lot of the risk might be merely transferred, not reduced. Preventable congestion is the bigger problem, tailgating is usually just a symptom. (Not saying it's ok, just that it's preventable in other, more indirect ways.)
And many solutions to congestion require complicated risk-now vs risk-later evaluations (including some that you listed- id'ing a bad driver or a tire about to blow out). These require more decisive, if not aggressive, driver actions, like speeding for 20 seconds to get away from the bad driver or to clear the passing lane. Or accelerating aggressively on an on-ramp (and not have to stop at the end of it to wait for an opening, which is part of why on-ramp metering has become so popular).
Or if you're on the interstate and it's posted for 45mph, but everyone else is driving 80mph. It's probably safer for you to speed (at least 60+) than to drive 45mph.
That's not really compatible with AI's current approach of being overly conservative with everything.
All this to say, I don't doubt AI will make some aspects of driving safer, but I still have doubts about whether it will improve overall safety, at least in the foreseeable future. Driving and traffic systems are complex.