> If the solution is flawed even a little bit, people will die. That will give self-driving cars a bad reputation and people will be unwilling to ride in them.

There is lots of debate on every autonomous car story, including this one, about "is as good as humans good enough", but that's a technical threshold. The real blocker (from my view) currently is and will be liability for "negligence."

If I'm driving and fiddling with the radio and as a result blow a light and kill someone, at most you can turn out my shallow pockets in civil court. The automaker has no liability.

But if the _car_ is driving and blows a light and kills someone, then the automaker can and will be sued because they've got deep pockets. I can see the ads now running during the Price is Right. "Hit by a runaway robot car? Jon from Orlando was awarded $3.2 million! Call Richard Cranium Attorney at Law and get yours!"