I’ll be happy when my TM3 can even recognize stoplights and stop signs on autopilot, and the adaptive cruise will stop at an intersection and continue on when i

I’ll be happy when my TM3 can even recognize stoplights and stop signs on autopilot, and the adaptive cruise will stop at an intersection and continue on when it turns green. Next they can work on left and right turns. But in all seriousness, IMO the biggest challenge to AI driving is not object recognition or modeling instantaneous state, but the full hierarchy of “statefullness” which humans keep effortlessly, but which seems to be almost totally missing from the driving AI. Understanding the current state, the upcoming state, and the expected transitions in between... are crucial to how I am able to turn left with oncoming traffic, smoothly cruise through a 4-way intersection which happens to be on a curve, zipper merge with entering cars coming off an on ramp into my highway lane during rush hour, change lanes to avoid a bad driver, and not slam on the brakes when a stopped car is in the process of turning left up ahead. When driving on a two lane undivided road, and a left turn lane appears ahead, suddenly an AI finds itself driving in between two lanes and makes a random choice to veer left or right to try to stay in lane. Without the stateful understanding of how and why this new lane came into existence the AI is clueless. The AI can’t solve the problem just by identifying lanes at t=0, or trying to read signs or markings on the road. Us humans know intuitively (or from memory) which lane is for onward travel and which lane is for turning. Any AI driving system built in the next 5-10 years will need an annotated map which tells it which lane to choose. This all adds up, in my estimation, to a metric fuck-ton if metadata required per mile in order for an AI to operate. It cannot be done “statelessly” (like a human can do it) without an AI at least 5 orders of magnitude “smarter” than what we have today.