I'm a self-driving skeptic, but this test is not fair.
It's also illegal to do this, so it's not a valid edge-case.
It's also illegal to do this, so it's not a valid edge-case.
I have yet to see someone die because of the illegal and "labor intensive" situation they created in this "research".
> Would you feel better if you died due to someone breaking the law?
I can respond that back, but then with problems that are factual ( drinking and driving). Not fictional or harder to execute do it in practice ( this research)
Altering a speed limit sign may not be legal, but if it's done in a way that wouldn't fool a human, but would fool a self-driving system, that's just a way that a self-driving system could be unsafe that a human driver wouldn't, and people will react negatively toward the self-driving system. That's just human nature, even if it's not logical.
Regardless, we need to be aware of these possible "exploits" on self-driving systems. Sure, no one would bother altering a speed limit sign to cause crashes, because human drivers have context and common sense that would make that mostly ineffective. But if it were known that some popular self-driving systems could be fooled by that, I'd expect to see this happen more often, perpetrated by people who would probably otherwise try to hurt people in other ways. It's not a "new idea" in the context of driving in general, but it's a new -- and potentially very effective -- idea to dangerously mess with self-driving systems.
If selve driving vehicles become popular. The exploiter would have been recorded somewhere, identified and put to trial.
Story would go viral and the cat and mouse game continues.
No one is going to risk jail for letting cars drive 80 miles per hour, until the next road sign.
This is a stupid exploit.
Road signs can get dirty or damaged. There definitely are edge-cases where a self-driving car might not comprehend an imperfect sign which a human would read just fine.
Maybe this test in particular isn't fair, but it does raise questions.