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I rode in one recently. It was pretty smooth. An interesting thing: the car slowed to a stop in the middle of the street, and I couldn't immediately tell why.

There was a row of parked cars on the roadside, and a person was walking around one of them to open her trunk. I guess the car was able to spot her in the dark and opted to pause. So we were stopped there. The woman threw her hands up as if to say, "whatcha lookin' at?" I had the window down, and I offered the explanation "self-driving car." She said "Ugh, I hate those things." Then the car continued on.



This encounter is very on brand for San Francisco.


Now let's imagine the same scene but with the car stopping right next to thugs breaking into another car :-D


Now that you mention it, robbing a self driving car would be easy. Just stand in front of it and it'll stop for you.


Except if the car decide to drive you (the thug) to the nearest police station, bypassing human input.


I was imagining a self driving car drive by shooting but the car stopped slowed down in an inopportune moment, awkwardly


Inputs like what the humans inside the car are saying should be part of the decision making process. Like everyone inside shooting "DRIVE! DRIVE! DON'T STOP THE Fxxx CAR!". That should lower some thresholds for deciding to stop the car, as with a real human driver.




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