I can understand why: MANY people want this VERY badly.
a) the trucking company - can cut labor costs way down
b) Lyft/Uber/Taxi companies - same deal
c) soccer moms - now she can play with kids in the back and discipline them instead of threatening to pull the car over
d) safety zealots - point to the number of accidents/vehicle fatalities that occur due to driver error, and the dream(?) that a computer can remedy this. On that scale, the computer needn't even be perfect, it just has to be better than 36k(?) deaths per year in the US.
most other things that kill so many people have advocacy/improvement programs (heart disease ? now even McDonalds has calorie counts on its menu...)
e) Insurance (not sure they want this, but its going to be an interesting fight)
f) people in congestion - I've worked in the automated conveyor industry before. If you have god-like control of every car, can dictate acceleration, travel speeds and car spacing, you can easily double (or more) the amount of cars on the road at one time, or halve the transit time to get there
g) people who think they are important (everybody) - now I can read a book/run my business/make out/eat/practice yoga/read pron while driving.
Numerically - it makes a lot of sense - if the average commute is 30 mins, what would you pay to have an hour more in your day ? (people here- maybe not much, but see g) above
Lastly - the next generation. Cars consistently confound the generation that is raised with "black box"-like devices (does any one person know enough assembler, IC design, programming/coding and production to make their own smartphone ?). Why does stuff in a car need to spin and explode when the purpose is to move in a linear direction ? Why must I pay $4k for a reliable one of these when I can pay an app $40 for someone to drive me there themselves ? (and I will not be bothered with explosive fuels, maintenance cost/hassle, depreciation cost, yearly taxes in some states, inspections, cleaning, storage, larger living space, OMG carbons etc....)
I agree that technology isn't there. It isn't even close. Not sure how this hoopla got started but this is the result of "early adopting" a 4000lb piece of metal that is capable of 100mph and taking your hands off the wheel. Maybe we as a society will learn to back off a bit...but I doubt it. Whats the line about 'betting on people being stupid' ?
-John