All good points, but just a side note on one of my reservations about self-driving cars:
> and to top it all off, if the AI feels that it's in over its head than the car can just stop whenever and everyone can climb out of the vehicle
Just stopping in a car is always less dangerous than just stopping a plane, but there are cases where just stopping is very dangerous. Desert driving in the absence of sandstorms is probably unlikely to overwhelm an AI. However, in Alaska or the upper Midwest, you'll get snowstorms where you've got 6 inches or more of snow on top of the road, IR and the visible spectrum are limited to tens of feet due to blowing snow, exposed flesh will begin to freeze in under 10 minutes, and you might get hypothermia if you're in your car overnight. Getting out of the car and trying to flag down a passerby is likely to get you struck by an out-of-control car, so your best bet is to call a tow truck and hope they can get to you before the inside of your car gets too cold. In major blizzards, there are so many cars needing rescue, that some people need to wait in their cars until well into the following morning. The local newscast will warn people that driving is potentially life-threatening, but that doesn't mean that essential workers won't be driving. Having half of your trauma surgeons stuck in ditches in self-driving cars during a blizzard isn't a great situation to be in.
People keep candles, matches, and candy/energy bars in old coffee cans, plus water and blankets in their trunks (boots, if you're British) for these circumstances in order to be able to shelter-in-place for a day. Even humans with years of driving experience under icy conditions are pretty bad at driving in these conditions.
Having grown up in the upper Midwest, I was amazed how terrible drivers in the D.C. metro area get with just a dusting of snow or slightly icy conditions. I'm a bit worried that California-based automated driving companies will miss lots of common corner-cases associated with Winter driving in Alaska / the upper Midwest. I expect that if the road is uniformly icy, an AI would adapt fine with the assumption that traction levels here are the same as those up ahead. However, due to lower thermal mass, bridges undergo larger temperature swings and are likely to be icy. There are a bunch of gotchas associated with driving near active snowplows. Sometimes it's best to drive in the ruts created by other cars, but sometimes that's where the road is iciest and it's better to drive offset from the center of your lane. Under normal conditions, your car has a much shorter stopping distance than a loaded tractor-trailer, but in some icy conditions, the much higher tire loading will allow the tractor-trailer to stop in a shorter distance than a passenger car. Many people put sand bags in their trunks (boots) to increase their tire loading during winter.
There are just tons of little rules like this that you're either going to need to hard-code, or get good simulations plus a lot of driving time in International Falls, and hoping that a closed track still gets you conditions that teach the AI when to drive in the center of the the lane and when to drive off-center. Hopefully the AI also learns to visually identify different kinds of icy or likely icy patches.
I'm sure it'll all get worked out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the first Winter or two with self-driving cars ends up with a bunch of cars stuck in ditches in Alaska and the upper Midwest. It might look a bit like the newscasts from when they get icy roads in Texas or Georgia for the first time in decades.
Getting back to aircraft, even for everything that's in the emergency procedures manuals, writing good realistic simulations in order to get enough training data for the AI is going to be very difficult. For situations that aren't in the emergency procedures manuals, both most humans and most AIs are going to be in deep trouble.
> and to top it all off, if the AI feels that it's in over its head than the car can just stop whenever and everyone can climb out of the vehicle
Just stopping in a car is always less dangerous than just stopping a plane, but there are cases where just stopping is very dangerous. Desert driving in the absence of sandstorms is probably unlikely to overwhelm an AI. However, in Alaska or the upper Midwest, you'll get snowstorms where you've got 6 inches or more of snow on top of the road, IR and the visible spectrum are limited to tens of feet due to blowing snow, exposed flesh will begin to freeze in under 10 minutes, and you might get hypothermia if you're in your car overnight. Getting out of the car and trying to flag down a passerby is likely to get you struck by an out-of-control car, so your best bet is to call a tow truck and hope they can get to you before the inside of your car gets too cold. In major blizzards, there are so many cars needing rescue, that some people need to wait in their cars until well into the following morning. The local newscast will warn people that driving is potentially life-threatening, but that doesn't mean that essential workers won't be driving. Having half of your trauma surgeons stuck in ditches in self-driving cars during a blizzard isn't a great situation to be in.
People keep candles, matches, and candy/energy bars in old coffee cans, plus water and blankets in their trunks (boots, if you're British) for these circumstances in order to be able to shelter-in-place for a day. Even humans with years of driving experience under icy conditions are pretty bad at driving in these conditions.
Having grown up in the upper Midwest, I was amazed how terrible drivers in the D.C. metro area get with just a dusting of snow or slightly icy conditions. I'm a bit worried that California-based automated driving companies will miss lots of common corner-cases associated with Winter driving in Alaska / the upper Midwest. I expect that if the road is uniformly icy, an AI would adapt fine with the assumption that traction levels here are the same as those up ahead. However, due to lower thermal mass, bridges undergo larger temperature swings and are likely to be icy. There are a bunch of gotchas associated with driving near active snowplows. Sometimes it's best to drive in the ruts created by other cars, but sometimes that's where the road is iciest and it's better to drive offset from the center of your lane. Under normal conditions, your car has a much shorter stopping distance than a loaded tractor-trailer, but in some icy conditions, the much higher tire loading will allow the tractor-trailer to stop in a shorter distance than a passenger car. Many people put sand bags in their trunks (boots) to increase their tire loading during winter.
There are just tons of little rules like this that you're either going to need to hard-code, or get good simulations plus a lot of driving time in International Falls, and hoping that a closed track still gets you conditions that teach the AI when to drive in the center of the the lane and when to drive off-center. Hopefully the AI also learns to visually identify different kinds of icy or likely icy patches.
I'm sure it'll all get worked out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the first Winter or two with self-driving cars ends up with a bunch of cars stuck in ditches in Alaska and the upper Midwest. It might look a bit like the newscasts from when they get icy roads in Texas or Georgia for the first time in decades.
Getting back to aircraft, even for everything that's in the emergency procedures manuals, writing good realistic simulations in order to get enough training data for the AI is going to be very difficult. For situations that aren't in the emergency procedures manuals, both most humans and most AIs are going to be in deep trouble.