[tomkarlo]

Is this necessarily different from a car placed in normal cruise control (automatic throttle, no braking), where the driver is under the obligation to managing braking in an emergency? It seems like the human driver here was still under that obligation, but failed to act. (Possibly because they were distracted, but that's not unique to this situation.)

[jacquesm]

A cruise control system doesn't look out your front window and doesn't steer the car. So the driver is still actively engaged in operating the vehicle, just has one less lever to work on. And at the first tap on the brake it disengages.

If you want to compare it with a car operating on cruise control you'd have to sedate the driver.

[tomkarlo]

"Looking out the window" and "steering the car" is pretty much exactly what current year cruise control systems do. Just go look at the Subaru Eyesight systems, which depend on cameras that face out the upper part of the windshield. https://www.subaru.com/engineering/eyesight.html

(Subaru's doesn't do active lanekeeping, but lots of other manufacturers like BMW and Ford do.)

The newer cruise controls have lane-keep assist and adaptive cruise control - you don't have to actively steer or brake. On an open road, there's effectively little difference from the Uber vehicle, which would also let you disengage autonomous mode by breaking or otherwise interacting with the controls. (The newest mass-market cruise controls are "stop and go", which means they'll even bring the car to a full stop, then start driving again.)

[jacquesm]

That's not cruise control, that's lane assist. And note that it still says 'assist' right on the tin.