Ugh. The sooner Tesla pass by the "we're safer than human drivers" mark the better because hearing stories about how a single guy who died, while absolutely tragic, is getting tedious when put in context of the the vast number of regular deaths on the road. My heart only bleeds so much for a guy I never met, who took a chance that he knew the risks of, when considering the grander goal at play here.

The problem is, a human driver wouldn't have had any trouble avoiding that accident -- the truck was visible for some distance.

It's not just about the overall fatality rate per mile. Self-driving cars also need to not have any accidents that humans would have easily avoided. Until they demonstrate that, they're not going to be widely accepted.

Teslas don't come equipped with a LIDAR, that cruise, uber, udacity and google have been adding as a very important sensor.

Lidar sees a 3D cloud around the car with almost a cm accuracy. Better sensors could have most definitely prevented the accident.

However, to add to tesla's point. I have a car with adaptive cruise control. Not having to constantly check distance with car head has probably saved me once or twice from a crash.

Good auto-pilot's are definitely going to reduce human deaths on roads. Not only just deaths, but the amount of traffic all of us have to endure because someone just didn't keep the right distance from the car infront and bumped into them.

I'm all for open smart driving technology.

Yup, but I hope you see that an always-on driver assistance system is really different from a completely self-driven car.

I see so many people (like the one two replies above) push the argument for the latter using the advantages that even the first would give.

> Self-driving cars also need to not have any accidents that humans would have easily avoided.

Why? If they're overall much safer, then that seems like a net win to me—even if their failure modes are not identical to human ones.

I could be wrong, but I just don't think people are going to accept that. It's related to the illusion of control that driving provides: everyone thinks they're a safer-than-average driver. So even if self-driving cars are safe enough for everyone else, they're not safe enough for me.

There will, of course, be exceptions, as we've already seen (poor guy).

And my point wasn't "boohoo look at Tesla". It was that, contrary to what OP claimed, Google made the explicit decision to shoot for fully autonomous after having tried what Tesla did (and with LIDAR-equipped cars!).

Never understood this argument "s getting tedious when put in context of the the vast number of regular deaths on the road."

What are you comparing? a 70,000$ car with better safety standards to a 10 year old car! A car that's aimed to be completely autonomous (with driver assistance features) compared with a car completely human driven?

Can you not think beyond extremes? Here's a simple example. An always-on "Autopilot" (or any other driver assistance system) that only intervenes if the driver does a tragic mistake. We still have the important general intelligence of a human and the faster and reliable response of a machine.

"explained by the driver getting bored and complacent. "

I think it's more than that. I think driving requires a general level intelligence, and not a rule based AI.

For example, driving in the suburbs, you see a ball bounce in front of you. Expecting a chasing kid or a dog, you come to a stop. This isn't something a completely self driving car will do.

On the other hand, from the demos I've seen of "what the car is seeing", it looks like the car would probably know the child is running in his direction even before the ball passes in front of it.

We use general intelligence to deduce what we don't see. But the car sees much much more than we do.

Yes, what about the case where the child is hidden from the view by a street parked car.

My point is not a specific example, but the importance of general intelligence.