Comment by alkonaut

> but in order for it to get to the latter, it requires much validation and training in an intermediate state, with appropriate safeguards.

I expect self-driving cars to be launched unsupervised on public roads in only an order-of-magnitude safer than human drivers shape. Or not launch at all.

One can pay thousands of people to babysit these cars with their hands on the wheel for many years until that threshold is reached, and if no one is ready to pay for that effort then we'll just drive ourselves until the end of time.