Maybe at the moment, I don’t know but they’ll be unlikely to stay that way
Yes they are, but there will come a point where this is may not be the case. I imagine a time will come where the idea of people driving cars manually will pose too much of a danger for other drivers on the road. I wouldn’t even be surprised if you had to pay a higher insurance premium for a car with dual capability.
Almost definitely and that is the main problem 
Technically every single time you get into a car you’re controlling a death trap. I just think that why has an industry almost completely gotten rid of pilots for the vast majority of a flight, yet won’t automate take-off and landing. It may be that say motorway driving is manual only or that the cars have to be X feet away. I really have no idea - I just think you can’t have a human who programs a machine to decide to take a life for the sake of its driver.
It is genuinely scary to think of a time in which cars are in complete control - I just keep seeing the I, Robot scene.
I like driving as well 
lol, driving will become a hobby, you will have to go off to driving range to enjoy your car lol
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I have to say, that as a pedestrian, I’m really looking forward to the time when all cars are self driving. I’ll be able to cross the road as and when I like, and all the cars will come to a stop for me. It’ll be like like carrying my own personal pedestrian crossing with me. 
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Interestingly I ready that only 10% of cars that exist are on the road at any one time, the other 90% are parked.
This raises the question of whether or not it even make sense to own a driverless cars, will all cars be owned by fleet companies like enterprise, google, apple etc, and you simply have a transport / travel subscription that you pay each month?
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Oh did you not know, driverless cars will be completely blind to stupid. 
Or they’ll hit you and kill you. Funny thing about driverless cars versus humans when it comes to pedestrians - humans are much better at noticing a pedestrian and their body language and getting handle on the whole “They’re going to step out and cross the road” thing.
Driverless cars can’t predict that properly yet. They won’t ease off ‘because it looks like that person’s going to cross…’, which means when you do step out it may be too late for them to slow down and you get hit.
Alternatively, if you program cars to react as if all pedestrians may step out at any time, you’ll get cars which won’t go anywhere
tl;dr, read this instead of my post: How Pedestrians Will Defeat Autonomous Vehicles | Scientific American
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The car should just work out the percentage of survival of all known humans, and go for the best outcome. It’s hard to defend the idea of saving 22% of people over, say, 35%, or any larger percentage.
So you are buying a self driving car, you have two options
- A self driving car that will calculate and take action towards saving as many lives as possible even if it means killing you, your partner and your kids.
- A self driving car that will take action to save you and your families lives at all costs.
What do you choose?
I would definitely save me and my family at all costs.
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Autopilots are extremely good at landing aircraft but you have to let the humans do something else their skills atrophy. (The Asiana 777 crash was largely due to the autoland not being available as the ground equipment was out of action and the crew had not practiced manual landings - they managed to crash in perfect visibility)
Not really…Would you be happy that you and your family survived if it means two other families die? That would be a tough burden to live with, and arguably is morally indefensible - it’s quite clearly the selfish view to take, but is ultimately human nature to protect oneself and especially your own family.
What I think I would take comfort in, is that the response of the car itself would be much quicker and accurate than anything a person could do, which would maximise everyone’s survival rate in the case of an unavoidable accident.
But this is sort of my point. Why not just automate the whole flight if it is possible? Probably because for whatever reason society is more comfortable with a human piloting the aircraft rather than a robot.
Without question, I would want my family and myself to live over anyone else or any other family. Yes it’s a terrible burden to have to bare, but I would choose my family and my life over anyone else. You could say its selfish and maybe it is, but you only get one shot at this life.
However, knowing that other people would be happy to die over another family would make this easier to live with 
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It’s not completely automated because there are still situations where the software doesn’t know what to do and humans are the best ‘software’ we have to deal with these situations. If you want your human to have any chance of dealing with it though, they need to have current skills and training.
Just to follow on from that though, I truly believe there are some situations where no amount of software can beat a human - naturally there are likely more situations where the software will beat the human though.
Oh definitely - Its a weird one as the “driverless” car scene won’t become the norm straight away so you will have a similar issue going forward it seems.
I am 99% certain this is how Skynet began
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Have you got any examples? Genuine question 
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Whenever this comes up, my view is always that this is holding self driving cars to a much, much higher standard than human drivers
Do human drivers weigh up all these factors? Could they?
Doubt it personally
Even if they could, is this ever properly tested?
Off the top of my head - not really… (its more of a belief I have rather than anything I can truly back up with stats).
One example I tend to play around with is the law.
You have an issue and can either go to:
- A Robot who knows their way around the law, loopholes etc you name it and can all but guarantee you a win; or
- A Human Lawyer, who truly understands you on a human level, can empathise and sympathise with you and may have a slight disadvantage in the application of the law, but overall provides a better service.
Now I can see an argument for not caring and going for the one that will likely get you that better win percentage, but sometimes its about more than just numbers.
Kinda soppy but it is something I tend to think about when these sorts of arguments crop up.