[nexuist]

> You get to read your phone instead of paying attention, and the trade-off is someone might get killed.

You get to drive, and the trade-off is someone might get killed. Your comment almost makes me think you haven't driven a car before, because you would remember the dull terror of seeing your life flash before your eyes for the 40th time this year because some moron ran a red and slammed the brakes in the middle of the intersection you were about to cross.

Until recently motor vehicle accidents were a leading cause of death in the US. Saying that self driving would just be a luxury feature is truly a luxury position compared to those that have lost loved ones to drunk driving, speeding, snow, rain, new drivers, old drivers, blind drivers, and any other of the myriad of ways to get yourself killed on a road. All of which would disappear with level 5 self driving.

> That's a far cry from, "with this technology something that took days and $$$$ now takes hours and $"

Extrapolate the future and realize that once self driving is solved for one vehicle it's solved for all of them, and truck/bus/taxi driving as a profession will go bust. Without having to pay human drivers that also need breaks, pensions, health insurance etc. all these services can offer lower prices.

[bumby]

>All of which would disappear with level 5 self driving.

I think the post was about managing the risk that occurs before level 5 is reached. Assuming that it’s either on the immediate horizon or a foregone conclusion seems to be dismissive of those nascent risks

[entee]

I drive a lot, thanks. If you can prove me level-5 or even very good level 4 autonomous driving, and that a computational driver makes radically fewer fatal mistakes than a human, then I'm with you. In other words, if you can satisfy a good regulatory regime like the say, airplanes or drugs, then great.

Short of that, it's a luxury and a danger.

[judge2020]

The thing is that we're not going to get there if we disallow anything in between 2 and 5 just because it can be a danger when used incorrectly. Level 3 by definition[0] is where the driver can look at their phone until the car/beeps at taps them to start driving again, and we know that system won't be able to tell when it needs to request human intervention perfectly 100% of the time, yet we need to get level 3 systems before anything above it.

0: https://www.nhtsa.gov/technology-innovation/automated-vehicl...

[foobiekr]

Even autopilot in its current form has proven to be such an attractive nuisance for abuse that there is a market for those stupid steering wheel weights. How can you possibly not appreciate this problem?

[jjav]

> because you would remember the dull terror of seeing your life flash before your eyes for the 40th time this year

Is this really something you go through?

In ~35 years of driving, I've never experienced this.

If you are having near-death driving experiences 40 times per year, something is wrong.

[foobiekr]

Not the OP, and well, it's been a year and a half, but I regularly encountered unguided automotive cruise missiles in my morning drive down 237 in the bay area, with Tesla drivers being _particularly_ bad about sitting there playing with their phones. This is not a "life flashing before your eyes" situation, but it is a "this is very concerning" situation.

[jjav]

Perhaps I misunderstood the OP, but I didn't think they were talking about Tesla drivers paying no attention to the road and being absorbed on the phone, just their own driving experience of getting into near-accidents all the time.