In San Francisco, a self-driving car (SDC) ran over and dragged a pedestrian 20 feet before finally coming to a halt. There have also been numerous reported cases of driverless cars driving through active crime scenes. Yet another blocked the path of an ambulance rushing to the scene of a mass shooting. In these vehicles, actions and decisions are powered by the AI-driven control system, often trained on datasets that may not represent all environmental variations (such as urban vs rural settings and an array of weather conditions) and pedestrian demographic variations (such as age, gender, and race). These gaps can result in SDCs posing major risks to passengers, pedestrians, motorists, and infrastructure.
