This is a little simplistic. Computers can do things they aren't heuristically programmed to do - that's the basic idea behind machine learning. I've seen som

This is a little simplistic. Computers can do things they aren't heuristically programmed to do - that's the basic idea behind machine learning. I've seen some incredibly impressive robots that ran entirely on neural nets and never failed, but because it was impossible to understand how they worked they could only be used for demonstration purposes as guaranteeing safety was impossible. What you seem to be referring to is true AI. I agree we are nowhere close to anything resembling true AI, but I do believe something representative of a computer that can "think" will appear in the coming decades. That said, you can program a car heuristically. Statistically speaking, the unknown unknowns are so rare that assuming it doesn't fail under expected conditions you can guarantee it to be safer than humans. The unknown unknowns are not the problem right now, it's just dealing with limited sensor input (cars have a hard time "seeing" what's around them) and making sense of the world around it.