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All of the brouhaha about self driving cars is moot until real user testing begins. I'm not talking about driving a google mobile around the streets of mountain

All of the brouhaha about self driving cars is moot until real user testing begins. I'm not talking about driving a google mobile around the streets of mountain view with an engineer in the driver's seat. These vehicles (I would hope) are designed to drive around people in different circumstances. They're software for use by people and until we have realistic tests with different kinds of people, ages, driving experience levels, etc. it's all academic. I'm somewhat wondering if all the self driving car stuff by Google and Tesla is primarily a vehicle (no pun intended) for marketing rather than actual tech that will yield a real product.

bertil 11y ago
It seems, from previous reports by Google, that their ability to understand discrepancy between sensors relies on knowing the road very well, not just the map with nuances like “cars can go there, but it’s mainly a pedestrian street” but more local undocumented habits. They mentioned details that prove that they would have to drive a lot in new cities to learn enough and make their car safe. The one that I remember is that they have started driving in Austin and came across a very local species of vehicle with a unique habit: the hipster fixie rider with his stand-stop motion at red lights. Committed bikers do not have free wheels and stay standing in place not by putting their feet down but rocking back and forth; that motion was new and not interpreted clearly by the car, that hesitated to see it as a false start. It’s since been fixed. The article didn’t specify if the shirt pattern had any meaningful weight in the interpretation.