Cruise Autonomous Car Drives Aimlessly For An Hour
I'm presenting this video of a Cruise autonomous vehicle because I thought it was revealing of the current state of the art in autonomous driving. I also thought it was kind of relaxing; enjoy the music. I put some notes after the video, for things that I noticed; you can read them first if you want to look at the video more critically.
The car drove very confidently, particularly in situations where the lane was changing, or poorly marked, or when a lane divided into two lanes.
The car seems to spend a lot of time in the left lane of four lane roads, even though it spent a lot of time waiting behind left-turning cars. It's less challenging, I'd guess.
The car refused to pass bicyclists even though they were fully in the bike lane, which seemed odd to me. The car never used the right side lane except when turning. In roads with only one lane, it was able to stop and wait for cars parking.
The car recognized speed humps and slowed down for them appropriately. The car recognized and stopped for bike riders who unexpectedly burst onto the scene. The car didn't need to wait for a pedestrian to fully cross, but would proceed when the right of way was clear.
For different science fiction points of view, take a look at these articles:
Autonomous Cars: The Year Of Driving Dangerously
Afraid that your autonomous car will drive like a little old lady? Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have your back, speed demons.
The Point Of View Of An Autonomous Car
Take a look at this TED talk from Chris Urmson, who heads up Google's driverless car program. I'm particularly interested in how he describes how a car sees the world.
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