Not a luddite here (though definitely an Uber hater). I'm really disappointed by what this accident tells.

IMO this was still a hard case for a human[0], but it shouldn't be a hard case for LIDAR-equipped self-driving car. They were not doing Tesla-style stunts with "we'll drive only with a visual-spectrum camera". They had a suite of sensors on-board.

I expect it'll turn out that either it was Uber-specific problem (e.g. software bug, or lying about LIDAR capabilities, or both), or a deeper problem in sensor tech for self-driving cars in general. The second case would be really disappointing, as - given all that has been published so far - one would expect self-driving car tech to avoid accidents like this.

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[0] - I mean, really, a pedestrian going through a road like this with zero reflective lighting? Is it even legal in US? In Poland it isn't.

In the wake of the Tesla accident, there was this discussion about the difficulty of detecting stationary obstacles (too many false positives, so they're readily discarded). As here the movement was perpendicular to the movement of the car, I wonder whether that had any impact.

This was my first thought as well when watching the video

The Teslas are not restricted to cameras, but sensorfuse with multiple radars. Im 99-100% sure, that my Tesla would have braked.

In sweden we have regulations that require reflectors, and front + rear lights in the dark.

What do you mean by unavoidable? Do you think a human would have made the same mistake in most cases?

Because then my question is, have you ever used a camera at night? It can't see as much as you (at video rates).

What don't you get about people discussing other sensing technologies? Just because it wasn't clear from this video and this camera, there are other sensors which don't require illumination with visible light. Even a front facing radar might do a good job of slowing down.

I'm saying that the evidence as it stands doesn't remotely support the idea that this accident was avoidable for either the driver or the automation, and that I'm shocked at the irrationality with which people are trying to pretend it does.

If you want to make a point about cameras or eyes with evidence, do so. The evidence in the linked video supports there opposite of what you claim.

Here's what the video helps understand. The pedestrian wasn't hiding behind, say, a bush and leaped out. It seems like the pedestrian was unoccluded for the whole time they were on the street.

"Seems like", that is, because the pedestrian is not actually visible! This is the irrationality part. You are literally saying that she must have been visible because you can't see her on camera.

I give up.

No, she must have been visible because she can't teleport and road are typically clear.

Gah, but she was in the dark. You literally can't see her. You're asserting stuff about human vision being better without evidence[1], and then using an inference from the video that clearly shows this woman was invisible to "prove" your point. Which is insane.

[1] Again, this is just not true. Cameras sensors have HIGHER dynamic range and ISO bandwith than eyes. What is true is that people have better AI behind the scaling decisions and can search better across wide-dynamic-range environments than typical cameras. But again, that presupposes that the driver would have been looking for the black-clothed biker walking a bike without reflectors in the dark shadows between street lights. Which, wait for it, NEEDS EVIDENCE.

By visible I meant visible to active sensors like radar and lidar. This is the second part of my original response to you, and why I then said the pedestrian was unoccluded. Sorry that was unclear. Also sorry you're so frustrated.