Baidu CEO: highly autonomous cars could become common "sooner than expected" · TechNode

Large-scale commercial operation of highly autonomous vehicles (AVs) could become a reality "sooner than expected" in China, Baidu's CEO Robin Li said on Thursday at the 2022 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai. "I think it would take a longer time to commercialize Level 3 autonomous vehicles, because there remain questions about who is liable in the case of accidents involving these vehicles," Li said (our translation). Level 4 vehicles, however, make it clear that the manufacturer or the owner, rather than the driver, is responsible in a crash, Li added. Level 4 refers to a fully autonomous system where vehicles travel from point A to point B without requiring any human intervention. In Level 3, also called the semi-autonomous level, the driver is still required to take over the vehicle in emergencies, according to definitions set by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE).