Self-driving Vehicles and Autonomy

The future of the world seems to be autonomous. We have reached a point that the future is going to be in Artificial Intelligence; Google has even said they are an AI-first company. The idea behind this push is for machines to learn and adapt to our needs. We want machines to work easily for us. One category of machines that is being pushed to work for us (and without us) is automobiles.

Even when transportation consisted of horses pulling a buggy, humans have always been "behind the wheel". By that, I mean that humans have always controlled where, when, why, and how a vehicle will be moving. We have now reached a point where the future will consist of cars that control speed and direction without the need for human control. Aside from convenience, the main reason for the push: removing human error.

It is no surprise that the vast majority of automobile accidents can be traced back to human error. Whether it is not watching the road, driving too fast, or simple reckless behavior, humans, and specifically human judgement, are the main reason that accidents occur. With self-driving vehicles, we can no longer make those mistakes. A computer will not make these mistakes because it is programmed not to; a computer cannot take its eyes off the road or break the speed-limit. Computers are given instructions to follow, and they cannot break them on a whim. While my opinion is that this sounds great in theory, I think this also eliminates the one thing that can also avoid accidents: also human judgement.

Within the first hour of a self-driving car's pilot run in Las Vegas, it was slammed in to by a human-driven car. Authorities determined that the self-driving car stopped as it was supposed to and the human did not stop as required thus leading to the accident; textbook case of human error right? Many (mostly on the side of anti-self-driving) contend that a human could have seen the man run through the stop and thus tried to move to avoid the accident. I have to say that these people do have a point. As many accidents as human error may cause, human judgement also possesses the ability to break with driving law to possibly prevent accidents. Makes perfect sense right?

My question to you: what are your thoughts on self-driving cars? Do you believe that removing humans from behind the wheel will eliminate human error and prevent accidents? or do you believe removing humans from behind the wheel eliminates the ability to make a quick judgement call that only humans can make which will increase accidents? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.