Still, simulations can’t replace the value of actual road experience, says Philip Koopman, an electrical and computer engineer at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “What about the scenarios they didn’t know [to simulate]?” he says. “Weird, weird, weird stuff happens out on the roadways.”
Since current self-driving safety assurances aren’t exactly airtight, Koopman argues that self-driving cars should be held to a way higher standard than human drivers — say, 10 times safer than the average human — before they’re given the green light. That would provide enough wiggle room in the margin of error to assume that the driverless car actually is safer, Koopman reasons.
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