Earlier quoted context omitted.
I work on AVs and this is a) incredibly useful b) the future of self-driving L3 is 100% the groundbreaking part because it's when the manufacturer has to take liability and it's where people can actually afford it. I believe in the technology "trickling up" for L3 much more than I believe tech in our million dollar robotaxis trickling down to consumer vehicles.
I agree with you, it seems like it's the most valuable first step. Just eliminating the daily rear-end collisions during commute would be a huge step forward.
Automated emergency breaking systems can prevent a lot of those already. That feature is available in Level 0 systems.