Yes they would be a huge boon, but I don't think it will happen. And I'm still bullish on rideshare anyway.

That was the story that Uber/Lyft sold to their investors prior to their IPOs. Here's a fantastic (and long) article by Tim O'Reilly that:

https://qz.com/1540608/the-problem-with-silicon-valleys-obse...

Despite that I still think rideshare is valuable and there's no going back. I think Uber and Lyft will raise their prices significantly and people will take them anyway.

True L5 have zero chance of becoming a reality universally in the next several years. I drive a Tesla and continually see edge cases that I have no idea how autopilot should handle. For example, going to ski today at Squaw, they create these temporary lanes with cones, but ask you to ignore the actual lane markings. Further, there is a roundabout in SF that has a mix of Muni, cars, bikes, scooters, pedestrians, regulated by a stop sign. I find it impossible to navigate as a human driver. Not sure how and AI can ever navigate this