[CPLX]

> seems to me like people just love to come up with imaginary reasons why self-driving cars/trucks can't work

You do have a point. The core reality that self-driving is equivalent to full artificial intelligence and passing the Turing test should be sufficient I'd think.

[tachyonbeam]

I believe in incremental improvement. We can design vehicles that are increasingly more autonomous. They might never become completely autonomous (case in point, they will likely always need someone to come and repair them when damaged), but they can become autonomous enough to be useful. We're not far from the point where autonomous vehicles can become useful in specific scenarios, such as always following the same path on the same stretches of highway.

[pault]

The thing I've always wondered about is: if governments can put street signs for humans on every road, why can't they do the same for autonomous vehicles? Sure, you could vandalize the signs and wreak havoc, but you can also remove a stop sign or hack a traffic light and do the same now. If a standards committee was formed to develop a spec for autonomous vehicle guides it seems like we could get to full autonomy far faster than waiting for AGI. Maybe you still have to drive on backcountry dirt roads, but wouldn't automating 90% of traffic be an enormous win for society?

[lmm]

Partial automation might be worse than no automation at all - if the human is forced to take over they'll be less prepared for it.