> Except in this case she wasn't "driving"
One thing I am not comfortable with is the PR approach to autonomous / automatic driving, which seems to be based on science fiction stories of sentient machines rather than on our actual state of the art in transportation.
A ship's Captain is almost never on the bridge, but he has ultimate authority and responsibility for the ship. Likewise, an officer of the watch (or a helmsman) may or may not actually be at the helm, but he is still responsible for ensuring safe passage.
In the air, the pilots operate (and are of course responsible for) the aircraft regardless of the level of automation being used at any given time, which particularly on airliners is usually very high. What that does is frees up your limited cognitive capabilities to do what we do best: plan and make decisions based on incomplete inputs.
I don't know much about trains, but I believe it is a similar thing.
For all the above we require years of intensive training, recent experience and frequent testing.
So why would you then put a random anybody whose sole qualification is having a driving licence (which besides, in the States does not even prove that you can drive) to operate a complex, experimental system?
To my knowledge, Google have used specifically trained engineers for this and so do Audi. There is clearly a right way and a wrong way to go about it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
