[Dig1t]

I agree that the second point is overly simplistic, I do think there is some sense in the argument and that it remains to be seen whether the state of AI will advance enough to be better than humans. Yes, humans do have intelligence and that does help quite a bit, but I would also guess that a system could potentially be better than most ordinary human drivers without LiDAR just because they have a much better view of all cars around them (humans have a somewhat narrow field of view and can only look in one direction at a time, computers can have a full 360 degree view all of the time). They never suffer fatigue and never get distracted. My guess is that, yeah, it is better to have LiDAR, but also we can also probably make a really good system that is better than humans on average and saves many lives per year without it. It seems worthwhile to me to continue exploring and investing in.

[ra7]

It is definitely worthwhile to continue exploring this. But as you say yourself, there needs to be significant improvements in the state of AI to do this. So Tesla seems to be relying on achieving significant breakthroughs to make it happen. I wonder if it's too risky of a bet considering they are already taking money for FSD from customers and promising the feature.

Also, I don't think Tesla is known for their AI expertise like Google. So it remains to be seen if they can pull it off.

[lrem]

Until they lose peripheral vision later in their lives, people's field of view is about 180 degrees.