In the aftermath of the 737 MAX crashes, I wrote
First We Change How People Behave.:
The fundamental problem of autonomous vehicles sharing roads is that until you get to Level 5, you have a hand-off problem. The closer you get to Level 5, the worse the hand-off problem.
Three years earlier, Paul Vixie was more specific in
Disciplining the Unoccupied Mind:
Simply put, if you give a human brain the option to perform other tasks than the one at hand, it will do so. No law, no amount of training, and no insistence by the manufacturer of an automobile will alter this fact. It's human nature, immalleable. So until and unless Tesla can robustly and credibly promise an autopilot that will imagine every threat a human could imagine, and can use the same level of caution as the best human driver would use, then the world will be better off without this feature.
Follow me below the fold for an update on the hand-off problem.
