> - Drives better than the median human driver in average weather conditions on half of the roads in the US (alternatively, for harder goals, replace with US+Europe or World) - Drives better than 95% of people in 95% of weather conditions on 95% of roads in the US - Drives better than any human in any weather conditions on any road in the US
> I'd argue we're almost certainly past the first milestone, and probably at or approaching the second, and the third will never be reached, but that doesn't matter.
I agree on the first and third milestones. Or kinda -- perhaps the first milestone is only reached for California, or for US highways yet.
I think you underestimate how difficult the second milestone is. The variation is tremendous, even merely within the US, to say nothing about the rest of the world.
> Fwiw, I'm fairly confident that waymo's vehicles can handle flagmen and
I'm sceptical. I think there will be so much ambiguity, both through road situation and through human interaction which we interpret with comparable ease, that the car may be stumped. And we set the high hurdle of forgoing steering wheels, so we need some other, yet to be devised way to give the car hints safely and efficiently.
> have more experience driving in the snow than I do.
I wasn't thinking about handling the car (I can easily believe that a computer does a better job of that), but rather about decreased visibility, no visible road markings, etc.
> And I'm sure they can handle aggressive or
Fairly easy I guess. Just be defensive, put a bit of distance between you and them.
> undisciplined drivers.
Much harder. Not from a safety perspective (again, just be defensive), but from a I'd-like-to-arrive-at-some-point perspective. Because then again it becomes about human interaction (being assertive without being an asshole, muddling your way through this blocked intersection through essentially non-verbal communication with the drivers around you), and computers will (inherently, perhaps) be worse at that than humans.
> Conversely, there are situations that AVs will handle much much better than humans already (a neighborhood with a lot of kids running around and shrubs occluding them for example).
Except, again, that humans will be able to judge body language or the rules of a game the children are playing, and anticipate instead of being confined to reacting (which the computer will indeed be better at, I agree).
Perhaps my pessimism also stems from the fact that the oh-so-smart driving assistants in my car are so shitty (read my other posts if you're interested) :-)
EDIT: Thanks for the interesting discussion so far.