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Comment by CorrectHorseBat | Hacker News Reader

The person was clearly not going to cross right there at the corner so such an abrupt stop was totally unnecessary. If the car assumed he was going to stop a bit further at the yellow lines it should have either braked earlier or just keep on driving.

The way it reacted it IMO just looks like clueless new driver.

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I wonder if you had a million such scenarios would the pedestrian surprisingly step in front of the car at least once? Humans, who never experience a million such cases, would learn that such things just don't happen and would take the one in a million risk of bumping that guy if he decided to be stupid. The machine driver, if we're being charitable, may be trying to minimize even rare accidents accepting the cost of less pleasant passenger conditions.

The cost of stopping was extremely low. I think this was a totally reasonable action

I'd say that kind of stop has a very non-trivial chance that someone will rear-end you. Which is "their" fault but you can go out on pretty much any given day and cause an accident that is someone else's technical fault if you want to.

Looking at that video seems pretty clear he's not going to cross. I'd expect at least some eye contact. If it were more ambiguous, as a driver, I'd probably gently slow down do I could stop quickly if circumstances demanded.

Except that Waymo's vehicles also have cameras on the back, and can accommodate that scenario as well.

That only works if they wouldn't stop if someone were close behind. Sometimes you need to decide which is the worse outcome.

I am not sure where you are going with this argument. Why do you think they would stop even if they will be rear ended? Do you have access to their algorithm?

The computer will choose the action that minimizes the probability of harm. And they have more sensors and data in this situation.

Not clear at all that the person wouldn't cross the corner.

Sure, but it didn't endanger anyone, which can't be said for some (many?) human drivers.

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