Right. So many arguments just start from the premise that self-driving cars must be safer and then ask why we aren't racing to replace human drivers with them. In reality the proposition that they are safer is far from proven.

Not to mention that the risk profile is going to be different. When you are driving your car, there is at least the illusion that you are in control of your risks. A careful driver at least believes that their risks are significantly lower than average. Getting into a self-driving car you have no control and are just playing Russian roulette.

Not to mention that the failure modes of self-driving cars are likely to be very different from failure modes of humans, making it more difficult for other road users to predict what they would do in any given situation.

We already know that the assumption is correct for a lot of cases. Self driving cars have logged millions of miles on the road.

The only question is can we make them work in situations that are hard.

Meanwhile human-driven cars have driven billions. The only question is can we make them (humans) work in situations that are hard?

In other words, "it works until it doesn't" is tautologically true, but useless precisely for that reason.

The answer to your question is basically "no". Humans aren't getting better at driving in the aggregate - new ones are born, learn to drive, get better, then get worse, then die off. On average humans are as good as they're going to get (with small variations due to culture and different training programs).

On the other hand the self-driving cars are just getting started. It's entirely reasonable to suppose that they may surpass the average human in the next X years. And they won't get old and confused and eventually replaced with new cars that have to learn from scratch -- they should get more or less monotonically better. I think the optimism is warranted even if the timeline and technology is uncertain.

> It very well could turn out that self-driving cars are worse, or no better, than human drivers.

This is trivially true. I mean, self driving cars that are worse than human drivers already exist. Isn’t the point asking when they will be made widely available? I assume that is only possible when they are at least as good as human drivers by some key metrics.

I agree, the sane assumption should be that self-driving cars would be made widely available if and when they are better than humans at driving.

However, I've noticed that many work from the premise that self-driving cars are already safer than human drivers. That, or they'll work from the premise that self-driving cars will definitely be safer than human drivers within a reasonable timespan.

Worse, some assume that self-driving cars will dramatically, or nearly eliminate automobile accidents/deaths, where any brief skim over workplace casualties involving autonomous machinery would put that fantasy to rest.

For a group of tech workers that often overlap with self-described skeptics, it's an interesting blindspot to have.