For the foreseeable future, there will always be scenarios in which a human could perform better than an automated system. What I'm talking about here though,

For the foreseeable future, there will always be scenarios in which a human could perform better than an automated system. What I'm talking about here though, is the 6,000-7,000 accidents/year that could have been prevented by an automated system that is never distracted, and has <10 millisecond response timing. What I worry, is that these systems will (of course) have bugs, and they are mechanical systems, so they will also physically fail - and, they will cause some deaths (cars are dangerous - 36,000 fatalities/year) - - but if for every one of those bug/physical failure deaths, you have 10 where the automated-system avoided an accident - that's a pretty big net savings in human lives. And, software/hardware systems are only going to get better - that's certainly not the case for human drivers. Indeed, with cell phones, regardless of whether they are hands-free, there is research to show we are becoming less capable drivers than we were 30 years ago.