I also agree that most humans manage to drive in challenging conditions, but their margins for error become slimmer and slimmer. I personally want my autonomous robot vehicle to be way more efficient and safer than the best human operator and also able to deal with conditions that any sane human would pull to the side of the road when encountering.
In some way, I am against the philosophy of using HD maps + LIDAR data for highly accurate localization which most companies seem to be using these days. I believe that this approach is inherently brittle and is an 'easy way out' to the hard localization problem. I think more resources should be put into developing more natural, no HD map dependency techniques.
PS: It is my understanding that most of the major players were using HD maps, not sure if it is still true.
Can you elaborate on this? I've always felt like the margins of error are getting wider because the automotive tech (particularly safety features) are so vastly improved. I doubt people would be able to text and drive as much, for example, if they were driving a 1950s era Willys jeep just because it requires so much more attention to keep on the road by comparison to modern vehicles.