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> It should be the car equivalent of an elevator -- a dumb machine with safeties that automatically stops if anything isn't right and waits for a human to figur

> It should be the car equivalent of an elevator -- a dumb machine with safeties that automatically stops if anything isn't right and waits for a human to figure it out. An elevator doesn't know what's standing in between the doors. Something is, therefore the door doesn't close until it goes away. Here is your issue: you are describing an automated train. A remote operator can pilot it if anything odd is happening. This model doesn't scale well for individual cars, especially on open roads where everything can happen. For this you need a driver inside the car. A self-driving car requiring a driver is not that "self-driving".

dale_glass 3y ago
> A self-driving car requiring a driver is not that "self-driving". That seems more like a philosophical issue than engineering at that point. All technology requires some amount of monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting. You don't need to solve every possible weird event happening for automation to be useful. The main two use cases as I understand are: * A qualified driver sits in the car, just doesn't want to drive. They can be asked to assume control any time it's needed. * The vehicle forms part of some sort of large fleet, and can be managed centrally. You'll always want some amount of central control for a fleet. What if the car breaks down? What if somebody else crashes into it? What if somebody tries to steal it?