[TA]In a Race Between a Self-Driving Car and a Pro Race-Car Driver, Who Wins? - Page 3

Originally Posted by wedge 

I race cars myself. I've been told I'm pretty damn good at it too. I can tell you from experience that race car driving is not a science, it's an art-form.
No matter how large and complex and intelligent the control algorithms become, no self-driving car will ever be able to consistently beat a professional human driver.
Formula One race teams have the highest racing budgets in the world. They do everything, and I mean EVERYTHING they possible can to make their cars faster. No matter how fast they are, they try to get faster. One of the tools they use is racing simulators. They have the most advanced simulators that currently exist, and some of the highest paid professionals to program them. They use hundreds of variables to perfectly and accurately predict how fast a particular car can go around a particular race track. For comparison: the most realistic racing video game maybe uses dozens of variables, at best. F1 uses these simulators to calculate the perfect racing lines and figure out the best tires to use, and all the other stuff they need to know to win. It even calculates the fastest theoretical lap time that a car is physically capable of doing (regardless of who the driver is). But then when the pro driver gets into the car and goes around the track, the professional driver ALWAYS beats the computer simulation.
If the greatest computer driver can't beat a human driver in a simulation. What chance do they stand in the real world?
Like I said, they can't do it. They can't because racing is an art, not a science. The day they can better us in racing is the day they can better Picasso at painting, or Shakespeare at play-writing, or Pavarotti at opera singing.