Self-Driving Cars Still Can't Recognize the Difference Between a Wedding Planner and an Urban Planner

Pundits agree that planners need to prepare for self-driving cars. Self-driving cars still need to prepare for planners.

1 minute read

April 1, 2019, 9:00 AM PDT

By Planetizen


Pedestrians

Would you let a robot decide which one of these people is a wedding planner and which is an urban planner? | ultramansk / Shutterstock

In another sign that self-driving cars aren't ready for the market, the developing technology still fails to recognize the difference between a wedding planner and an urban planner in road tests.

A wedding planner can put together a beautiful floral array and keep the wedding party on schedule with an iron fist.

An urban planner can reduce parking requirements and approve density bonuses for affordable housing construction.

A self-driving car can't tell the difference.

Regulators at the Federal Highway Safety Administration announced Tuesday that none of the prototype models of self-driving cars in creation by the leading auto and tech companies were able to reliably differentiate between Jennifer Lopez's character in the 2001 movie The Wedding Planner and Daniel Burnham, who first coined the phrase "make no little plans" during a series of tests in a controlled environment.

The failure paints a bleak picture for the market feasibility of self-driving cars technology.

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