But they already have cars that drive themselves, without human interference. Google (and other companies') engineers have been driving them all over the country on test runs. Obviously if the car will drive itself to a specified destination autonomously, the physical state of the occupant is no longer an issue.

> Ie. the ninety-ninety rule.

Yes, fair enough -- I'm sure there are still edge cases, but the OP said, with respect to this technology, "... we won't see that kind of thing even within the next few decades, if ever."

The turning point will be when the technology's edge cases are less dangerous than a human driver's edge cases. That won't take very long.

The physical state of the occupant is an issue if there are situations where the occupant might need to regain control of the vehicle. Unless the autonomous car can handle all potential situations the occupant will still need to be in a fit state to drive the vehicle.

All I can say is that the goal of self-driving cars is to take the occupant out of the picture entirely. I think a lot of public safety officials will welcome this change. Eventually, there will be two classes of vehicle occupants -- those who are qualified to touch the controls, and those who aren't.

For an earlier social model, look at elevators. At one time, to have an elevator in your building, you had to hire an elevator operator. Then there were elevators that the building's occupants could operate if they were careful and knew what to avoid. Now elevators are safely operated by anyone.

Same idea.

  > when the technology's edge cases are less dangerous than a human driver's edge
  > cases. That won't take very long.

This isn't the fantasy of "get wasted, get driven home, no matter what," but it seems good enough to ensure people are safe. Maybe you can get home, or maybe you sleep it off on the side of the road, or maybe your car drives you to a motel.