Far quicker and with better situational awareness probably.
Those instinctual human responses can be wrong/misguided as well and can have pretty serious ripple effects (e.g. most chain collisions after somebody panics and steps on the breaks). And even when those instincts work correctly, they rely on driver focus and attention; which to put it mildly is not very reliable. The lack of that is a well known root cause of many accidents. People get tired, distracted, etc. or become otherwise unfocused from driving safely. And of course some drivers are simply not that competent, barely know traffic rules or how to drive safely. The barrier for getting a drivers license is pretty low. And all that is before you consider road rage, drunk drivers, elderly drivers with cognitive and visual impairments, and all the other people who really shouldn't be driving a car.
If you rank AIs against most drivers, they probably hit the top percentile in terms of safety and consistency. Even if you are in that percentile (and most drivers would likely overestimate their abilities), most human drivers around you aren't and never will be.
Traffic deaths in the U.S. are staggering — annually far exceeding the fatalities of most U.S. military conflicts since World War II, including the peak years of the Vietnam war. It's hard to do worse than that for AI drivers. The status quo isn't very safe. Most of that is human instincts not working as advertised. People really suck at driving.
Those instinctual human responses can be wrong/misguided as well and can have pretty serious ripple effects (e.g. most chain collisions after somebody panics and steps on the breaks). And even when those instincts work correctly, they rely on driver focus and attention; which to put it mildly is not very reliable. The lack of that is a well known root cause of many accidents. People get tired, distracted, etc. or become otherwise unfocused from driving safely. And of course some drivers are simply not that competent, barely know traffic rules or how to drive safely. The barrier for getting a drivers license is pretty low. And all that is before you consider road rage, drunk drivers, elderly drivers with cognitive and visual impairments, and all the other people who really shouldn't be driving a car.
If you rank AIs against most drivers, they probably hit the top percentile in terms of safety and consistency. Even if you are in that percentile (and most drivers would likely overestimate their abilities), most human drivers around you aren't and never will be.
Traffic deaths in the U.S. are staggering — annually far exceeding the fatalities of most U.S. military conflicts since World War II, including the peak years of the Vietnam war. It's hard to do worse than that for AI drivers. The status quo isn't very safe. Most of that is human instincts not working as advertised. People really suck at driving.