Machinic Sensemaking in the Streets: More-than-Lidar in Autonomous Vehicles

In recent years, lidar has increasingly been deployed in the testing of prototype autonomous vehicles. Rather than mapping forest cover or urban terrain, how- ever, lidar has been used to map driving environments. This chapter explores the machinic sensemaking capacities of prototype autonomous vehicles, both composite as well as “distributed”, with various, interconnected sensing systems and software programmes used for orientation, perception, and decision-making. In this, vehicles draw on sensing technologies with different observational ranges, prioritizing some over others at particular distances. Yet enabling this machinic sensibility involves undervalued, and misunderstood, visual responsibilities assumed by so-called “vehicle operators” during tests. Without this important work, prototype autonomous vehicles risk ignoring, or mis-sensing, other road users – with fatal consequences.