Futurology

This is the plastic bag reference. LIDAR cannot determine mass. A lot of cars were jamming on the brakes several years ago every time a plastic bag floated in front of their field of view. The algorithms were then tweaked in an attempt to prevent a 20 car pileup because the car freaked out about 1 oz of air-filled plastic. Humans make assessments like this on the fly based on our knowledge of physics, an understanding of real-time conditions, and some level estimation. We may even choose to ignore road markings and normal driving rules if we deem the risk too great vs. the risk of causing a secondary incident (pileup, attention of police, etc). This is not to say meat sacks are exactly perfect in these types of analyses either.. This is the tweaking the ML engineers are trying to perfect, for all possible scenarios. A difficult undertaking for humans and machines alike.