Earlier quoted context omitted.
It terrifies me to think of relying on image recognition software to correctly determine an upcoming crossing road (with cars zipping across) so it can properly slow down, rather than get broadsided at full speed. Or a number of other life-and-death situations (which are common during driving). It just seems fragile (what if the 'vision' is somehow impaired, f.ex. blinded by sunlight, or the road markings are wrong o…
> It terrifies me to think of relying on image recognition software to correctly determine (... snip) Do you not drive using only your eyes? If you are not terrified of the sensors, then software? Turing's central belief was that the human brain was 'just' a computer. Regards doing things like embedding reflectors in roads and other ways to simplify lane holding, completely agree. But we can't forego the cameras etc…
If you take the example of Chess, humans and machines play very different styles. Computers replace predictive understanding with excellent memory and fast search.
Similarly for cars, we want to replace the lack of a powerful predictive model with some compensatory mechanism, such as sophisticated sensors. The problem is that, even with faster reaction times, better sensors and fuller awareness, these cars' compensatory abilities against a lack of powerful predictive models are still far from sufficient.
At this point in time, a car with more sensors and failsafes to augment the human against collision is safer than a self-driving car that depends on a lack of lapses of attention. That depends on proper behavior in the customer. Even dividing tasks, with the human controlling the steering (but allowing the car to takeover when highly certain of danger) and the car controlling acceleration would be safer. This set up acknowledges the human propensity to mind wander when attention is not engaged.
Until self-driving cars no longer require human rescue in difficult situations, one can't rightly say that self-driving software are better drivers than humans.