Self-driving Myopia

Coffee is hot. Self-driving cars are not designed to avoid obstacles at highway cruising speeds. This should be clear to everyone, especially those who drive such cars. But somehow it is not. And in a typical "Hot coffee style" the cars are considered defective, such as Ms. Liebeck's coffee was "defective".

So perhaps, like it is now printed on coffee cups: "Caution: Contents Hot", (self-driving) cars should carry a "Caution: Myopia" warning on the auto-pilot's switch?

I elaborated on the reasons where that myopia comes from. Long story short: this is the technology limitation that won't go away quickly. Car systems are short-sighted. That allows them to self-drive at city speeds, but trying to do that at highway speeds is inherently risky. Cruising on a highway is smooth most of the time and requires nothing more than watching the bumper of the car ahead and lane dividers. But from time to time sudden things may happen, and the short sighted car systems will be too late to recognize an obstacle and do anything about it.

This contrasts with, for example. planes. Planes today can "see" much further than pilots. Equipped with advanced land-by-wire systems they can land in total lack of visibility. Also, in the air, there are fewer potential things an aircraft can fly into (practically only storm clouds, other planes, and birds), and they are protected with weather radars and the airborne collision avoidance system (ACAS), which cars simply do not have.

Having said that, there is one fundamental reason why my 2011 prediction of autonomous flights may not happen soon. Very rarely, but it still happens. the "systems" on a plane may go completely dark (like it probably happened on the recent accident). And when that happens, the plane becomes an uncontrolled missile that will hit the ground. This is why having humans up there (except for military operations) is necessary - to steer the falling aircraft away from populated areas.