Scientists from King’s College London have reported pedestrian detection issues in driverless cars. In particular, self-driving car systems are nearly 20% better at detecting adult pedestrians than kids, and more than 7.5% better at detecting light-skinned pedestrians over dark-skinned ones.
The experts believe the problem stems from bias in the data used to train the AI, which usually contains more adults and light-skinned people. This leads to systemic bias resulting in traffic accidents, especially in low visibility.
According to Dr Jie Zhang, one of the study authors, before, minority individuals may have been denied vital services, now they might face severe injury.