On: Nissan pledges commercially viable autonomous drive by 2020.

[sp332]

I still don't get it. Maybe a computer could react to an erratic human driver faster. But more importantly, it can react more consistently than a human driver who gets tired or distracted (or confused by other humans' behavior).

Edit: To put it another way, a computer that avoids common-case crash scenarios most of the time outweighs humans avoiding edge-case scenarios sometimes.

[tlb → sp332]

By watching faces or body language, human drivers can sometimes predict sudden moves before they happen. Example: children playing on the sidewalk and suddenly running into the road.

Still, I believe autonomous cars can be made better than human drivers.