Re: Link to the Beeb not the Financial Times
Granted the Tesla autopilot was poorly named and was being misused by the guy who got killed. But you're ignoring the fact that autonomous cars have to be FAR better than human drivers to gain public acceptance. BTW I do NOT mean the average human driver whose accident numbers are mostly due to those who are texting/drunk/distracted/inexperienced/old/speeding/tired, but human drivers with a lot of experience who are following all traffic laws and paying full attention to driving!
Any accidents at all they get into that a good human driver paying full attention likely wouldn't have that result in death or serious injury (particularly if it was a pedestrian or cyclist) is going to be a huge PR issue. And this WILL happen, because the sorts of things that can fool or confuse software & sensors are different from the sorts of things that can fool and confuse the human eyes and brain. They will need to have data to counter it, showing how autonomous cars are significantly better drivers than the top 1% of human drivers.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
