The sentiment against self driving is fundamentally irrational. Something bad might happen. Therefore, we stick with human drivers (because nothing bad ever hap

The sentiment against self driving is fundamentally irrational. Something bad might happen. Therefore, we stick with human drivers (because nothing bad ever happens with those, right?!). Of course the reality with human drivers is that they get into all sorts of lethal trouble all the time. So much so that traffic deaths are a pretty high ranking cause of death. Doing better than human drivers is not that big of a technical challenge because most of them simply aren't that great. What the article shows is the obvious: overall machines perform better. As you would expect from something that doesn't suffer from tunnel vision, fatigue, distractions, alcohol abuse, etc and has really good reflexes and responsiveness. Of course self driving cars aren't perfect. But neither is their human competition. And the cars are pretty good already and getting better over time. These numbers are not exactly set in stone. Also the circumstances where accidents are more likely to happen are also where people struggle. And of course getting cars to do better under those circumstances might be solved with technology. Better sensors, more cautious routines that adapt to visibility, etc. Or simply deciding to not drive based on the risks. That's a decision that humans are very bad at. Human drivers taking unnecessary risks is why people get stuck in winter storms and other bad weather. Going on the road when authorities are broadcasting warnings not to is exactly the kind of moronic behavior that gets people killed. As for FSD, it gets a lot of the press but there are quite a few self driving taxi programs now operating in a growing number of countries and cities. That's all level 4 autonomy of course but mostly rollouts are going fine. People that have taken Waymo rides seem to mostly enjoy it. I think restricting the driving areas for these things has more to do with liability than technical risk at this point. But the more cities manage to deploy this stuff fine, the less of an argument there is to block it elsewhere.