[sitkack]

What controls does Uber have that the "safety driver" is doing their job? When the computer gets confused or its computed probability drops below a threshold, when and how does it alert the driver. How many of these self driving testbeds have a person in the seat just for CYA and not actual safety ?

I'd like to see Uber's logs of all the other pedestrian and vehicle near misses where the computer took corrective action.

What testing did Uber do on a closed course with adversarial conditions? Ball rolls into road with a child following, pedestrians walking under a flickering street lamp, people dressed in costumes, a parade, a protest, service workers, a pickup truck with a lost load.

[Scoundreller]

Would be cool if the driver had to placebo-drive and the car used that input to assess discrepancies and validate confidence.

When the driver fails to do a task that the computer seems necessary with a high degree of confidence, both get shutdown for further evaluation.

[TeMPOraL]

I don't think that would work. Driving is not a fully conscious, deliberate see-analyze-act loop. A lot of your control movements are subconscious, and you expect instant, correct feedback from the vehicle. To see what I mean - if you've ever played a racing game, try opening a racing replay/Let's play video on YouTube, pretend for a while that you're in control (use your WASD keys), and see how your brain complains about your inputs having no impact on reality.