If you're supposed to keep your hands on the wheel, and given videos like this that show you really need to keep your hands on the wheel and pay attention, is automatic steering really that big of a deal?
Cruise control, now, that really is useful because it automates a trivial chore (maintaining a steady speed) and will do it well enough to improve your gas mileage. The main failure condition is "car keeps driving at full speed towards an obstacle" but an automatic emergency brake feature (again, reasonably straightforward, and standard in many new cars) can mitigate that pretty well.
It seems to me that autopilot falls into an uncanny valley, where it's not simple enough to be a reliable automation or a useful safety improvement, but it also isn't smart enough to reduce the need for an alert human driver. So what's the point?
If you're excited about self-driving cars because they'll reduce accidents, as many people here claim, what you should really be excited about is the more mundane incremental improvements like pedestrian airbags. Those will actually save lives right now.