GIGO

audio version of GIGO

The operator of a motor vehicle is an integral part of that motor vehicle during said operation. The operator decides what the destination is and what route to take. They decide the urgency level of the trip. They make decisions concerning the safety and efficiency of the trip.

The operator, whether they are actively aware of it or not, makes use of a LOT of factors including their familiarity with the area(or the lack thereof), the weather conditions, time of day, physical health of the operator, what they are transporting other than themselves etc etc etc. Not to mention monitoring the output that the vehicle sensors send to the dashboard.

The condition of the vehicle, the design of the vehicle, the condition of the driving surface, the chance(s) that an animal of one sort or another will dash into the path of the vehicle are all considerations and the operator must do the considering.

We humans have a pretty large capacity for ignoring things that are functioning as expected. So we might not think about things we consider automatic even as we make decisions based on them. The look, smell, sound and even feel of an area can (and should) affect choices the operator makes.

The ongoing effort to automate vehicular operation specifically by the immigrant oligarch that understands far less than he claims, appears to be ignoring the truth of the previous sentence. In deference to the perversion masquerading as capitalism, he wants to use as few sensors as possible to keep material costs and development costs down. To paraphrase an old canard, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

It is my considered opinion that fewer sensors are not better. Even if your visible light sensors can see from infrared through ultraviolet, relying solely on visual sensors seems irresponsible. Radar sees better in rain and fog. The last several times I have moved over for an emergency vehicle, I heard it well before I saw it. Why would we not have audio sensors incorporated into the design of the electronic operator of the vehicle? As a matter of fact I honestly believe that olfactory sensors, barometric pressure sensors and temperature sensors should be included with the LIDAR, RADAR, cameras and precipitation sensors that are available to the industry.

In the old school programming traditions there was a saying that applies here. "Garbage In, Garbage Out" generally abbreviated to "GIGO". I see no reason for humanity to be controlled by the lowest bidder. We need the electronic vehicle operator to be at least as sensitive as I am - and in an ideal world, it would be 10 times as sensitive.