It’s surprising. They must be using the wrong stuff.
I will say that waaaaaaaaay back in the 80s I attended a conference sponsored by Sen. Robert Byrd (in the Byrd auditorium in Byrdville, WV) discussing military technology. One of the talks was about the attempts to introduce AI into the fighter cockpit. One initiative was to determine when the pilot was unconscious so the plane could take over and put itself into a level, slow turn until the pilot woke up.
The problem they had was distinguishing between unconscious pilots and pilots in their normal, non-combat flying state.
That sounds like a punch line, but it’s true. Fighter pilots are very relaxed when flying until the action starts.
The problem is with getting the bot to recognize something on a visual sensor as well as make sense of what it ‘sees’ across multiple sensors.
So while it may have radar, lidar, and cameras, it doesn’t recognize the pothole as being an issue, nor does it recognize the deer or moose as being an impact threat until a certain distance is met.
In which case, the rest of the herd may have stumbled into it.
Currently there is an annoying ad for Subaru where it showcases automatic braking.
Which is only as good as the maintenance levels of the sensors.
Among other conditions.
While technology is good, it cannot completely eliminate the human element without becoming horrifically expensive.
And most people I know cannot afford the cost of robodriver.
We’ll see what happens, I guess.