I completely agree with you, but also have an anecdote that argues for the parent's view.

I was driving a long roadtrip from Texas to California, split into a couple segments over several days. At one point, my adrenaline and heart rate suddenly spiked. I felt freaked out but could not see a reason for it. I checked all my mirrors, traffic was busy but seemed to be moving along normally. A few moments later my vehicle was rocked by a semi-truck blowing past, traveling much faster than surrounding traffic, and missing my vehicle by what seemed like an inch.

The roadway was curved slightly, so I think the semi was in a blind spot when I was actively searching for the problem.

It's interesting that a subconscious process could alert me to a problem, in this case it didn't help me resolve it, but at least I was alert and looking. It had never happened before so there was a bit of confusion as well (why am I suddenly freaking out?) - but now I know how to pay attention if that feeling happens again.

Except that, in your example, an autonomous vehicle would already have tracked the truck (they can track nearly a mile in 360 degrees) and would have no need for that panic response. The OP is kinda pointless.

Maybe you haven't had it happen then to know what I'm talking about. Never had a gut instinct or a bad feeling that becomes true?

Sure maybe it happens and there is nothing really going on but my point is there is something about our sub-conscious that cannot be implemented with computers.

Part of what he's describing is coincidence/confirmation bias, but another part of it is probably some sort of cognition that happens at a level of the mind the driver is not conscious of.