Man Tests If Tesla Autopilot Will Crash Into Wall Painted to Look Like Road https://futurism.com/tesla-wall-autopilot
That said, I do think using only visual cues is a stupid self-imposed restriction. We shouldn't be making self-driving cars like humans, because humans suck horse testicles at driving.
Hardly. We drive hundreds of billions of miles every month and trillions every year. In the US alone. You're more likely to die from each of the flu, diabetes or a stroke than a car accident.
If those don't get you, you are either going to get heart disease or cancer, or most likely, involve yourself in a fatal accident; which, will most likely be a fall of a roof or a ladder.
> Approximately 1.19 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.
> Road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death for children and young adults aged 5–29 years.
Falls from a ladder/roof do not come close to that as far as I've been able to find. They'd be a subset of falls from a height, which is a small subset of unintentional falls/slips, which is still globally under road accident deaths.
It's true that diabetes, strokes, heart disease, flu, etc. do cause more deaths, but we're really into the absolute biggest causes of death here. Killing fewer than strokes is the lowest of low bars.
I think there's also the argument to be made in terms of years of life lost/saved. If you prevent a road accident fatality, chances are that person will go on to live many more healthy years/decades. If you prevent a death by stroke, flu, or even an at-home fall, there is a greater chance that person is already in poor health (to have potentially died from that cause) and may only be gaining a few extra months.
But, like curing a dread disease, it's often a long, difficult grind and not something that will for sure work by the end of this year for the last 10 years. No pharma company would get away with that hype.