Or maybe it wasn't programmed for such a situation? We don't know either way, do we?
And of course, who says a human driver would have noticed the car coming from the rear in time to move out of the way either.?
You've unwittingly played right into my hands with this one. When I was taught to drive, you know --- back in the days when we had the Flintstone mobile without power anything, we were taught to always do "the triangle" when sitting at a stop light.
Check your rear view mirror
Check Left
Check Right
And always know what's going on around you -- even when you're NOT moving. That's called ANTICIPATION. It's the same exact thing I'm currently teaching my youngest son to do while teaching him to drive. Here's why the ability to ANTICIPATE and HUMAN JUDGEMENT will beat a computer every time.
It was a nice spring day back in 1989 and I was going to work in my restored 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ with a 454 V-8 under the hood. I LOVED that car.
I'm sitting at a cross walk with a school crossing guard standing in the intersection in front of me with traffic stopped at all 4 corners while some pre-10 year old kids are crossing and going to school.
I'm doing the triangle, checking my rear view mirror, left, right, back to the rear view mirror when along comes some little old blue-hair lady in her Chevy Cavalier coming up behind me and she ain't stopping.
At the last second I put both feet on my brake and STAND ON IT. BAM!!!! Front end of Chevy Cavalier meets rear bumper of 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ (did I mention it was fully restored, and had been for only about two weeks to that point?!)
What happened?
Front end of Chevy Cavalier completely totaled. Little old lady had her seat belt on, she wasn't hurt.
Rear bumper of my 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ with a 454 V-8 had a chunk of rubber missing off the bumper, tail lights were cracked and the bumper was pushed in. Trunk lid damaged and popped up and trunk opening damaged. It was estimated she hit me between 30-35mph in a 25mph school zone.
What happened to the kids that were crossing in front of my vehicle as I got rear-ended by some blue-haired old lady that could barely see over her dashboard? SAFE AND SOUND.
Let me know when an AI computer can make that choice and save some kids.
(True story, btw. Just under $1,300 to repair the damage to my vehicle too. In 1989 dollars, that wasn't cheap.)
OK, first you postulate that a AI car was too stupid to accelerate, I assume through a stop sign or red light, to avoid being rear-ended.
Then suddenly we’re talking about you NOT accelerating to avoid being rear-ended, so you don’t mow down some kids.
Considering the AI cars have radar all around, it would be very easy to program the car to handle either of these situations as well, or better than a human.
And how do you know they aren’t already programmed to do just that?
I do know that in several of the cases that I’ve read about AI cars being rear-ended, they were sitting in traffic behind others cars with no where to go.
So what would you have had the AI do in that case?