There is not much to discuss in a practical way here, because the fear of the incident related to Mercedes's statement is near totally superfluous. Many are im

There is not much to discuss in a practical way here, because the fear of the incident related to Mercedes's statement is near totally superfluous. Many are imagining a world similar to our own today, but with self-driving cars; this kind of effort and R&D is meant to be applied graceful over decades, which isn't what Mercedes is planning for today and shouldn't be contextualized within out current modernity. What I believe is envisioned (obviously IMO) and why I feel this is a superfluous discussion is because in the world of self-driving cars of the Level 4 and up variety we are talking about beacon detection e.g. there are no pack of kids walking behind parked vans, because they all carry detectable devices such as laptops that always run Wifi, iPads, iPhones, etc. Everywhere they go these kids are detected and reacted in a world of Level 4+ cars. This is the same for pedestrians. Buses are also self-driving and all are communicating with each other in real-time and in fractions of a second. A Mercedes car in this world didn't just discover a patch of ice on the road that went previously unnoticed. The previous 100+ cars that drove over it detected a level of decreased and decreasing level of traction (probably on a predictable curve I'd even assume) and communicated it to the network that coordinates cars, traffic, pedestrian signals. It's insane to think that in a world of Lidar systems, infrared, AI and so that these things will just 'happen' as they do today; that isn't realistic or even reasonable. Ice? Oil spills, diesel spills, specs of glass, even a snot rocket from your local motorcycle gang are all detected immediately and compensated for with heat, humidity, tire traction quality deviation etc. It'll be just short of outright freaking amazing what this technology will eventually be able to do. For me this is just fun conversation, but ultimately totally useless beyond the ethical dilemma (which is more of a Pandora box discussion than anything), because it just won't really exist in any material manner in the future. Like a chicken or the egg. ;) Sorry haven't had a reason to use that word in a long long time; too much fun to pass on.