[froo]

Given there are auto manufacturers[1] that already exist with self driving cars, I'm going to go ahead and say its not a meme and more just a technology in the process of being fully realised.

Some times, things just take time. Especially when you're trying to create machines capable of not killing the general public.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/autopilot

[hueving]

Tesla's are not self-driving cars in the sense of revolutionizing any driving. You still have to pay attention and be ready to take over all of the time. That means you can't sleep, read emails, etc. on your commute. It's a fancy lane assist that reduces mundane movements you have to make and it improves safety, but it's not resulting in super cheap automated taxis or overnight road trips.

[suprfnk]

This just depends on what you classify as 'self-driving'.

https://www.sae.org/news/3544/

Ofcourse, the lower levels of automation will be reached first.

[skgoa]

That's like saying that a half empty glass counts as a certain kind of full glass.

[froo]

Did you not watch the video?

I call a car that is cornering, accelerating/braking, actively dealing with traffic and finally parking itself a self driving vehicle.

[RivieraKid]

In that case we had self-driving five years ago, I guess OP meant mind-off self-driving. That's the hard part, it could even be an AI-hard problem. Because if you have to pay attention with hands on a wheel, it's not a huge convenience improvement. And there's also the problem that human-take-over situations will be increasingly dangerous as the self-driving software improves.

And by the way, the auto-pilot video is underwhelming. Several companies have more advanced self-driving tech than Tesla, e.g. Waymo is at least 3 years ahead.

[froo]

The original point I was trying to make was that this tech was already deployed in consumer facing technology that is just waiting to be turned on.