I’m not calling for a ban on autonomous vehicles. There are clear advantages to using AI, and it is irresponsible for people to call on a ban, or even a pause, on AI. But we need more government oversight to prevent the taking of unnecessary risks.

That is basically what I'm thinking. In an ideal world we'd run a "Manhattan project" to create a massive and open research project for self driving AI with different approaches that doesn't rely on profit seeking and short sighted corporations. I still see no rational arguments for stopping to develop and improve self driving cars. There is no theoretical or practical hurdle for it to become near flawless with enough work. Potentially eliminating hundreds of thousands of deaths and injury and also saving a lot of energy and resources.

And yeah most transportation should be trains and bicycles and a better concept for velomobiles, something more like the podbike. But self driving small, cheap and low energy robo-taxis would have incredible value. Most of all it can be shared between people to a much higher degree because it can drive itself to the next pickup without requiring a full time driver or space for one. It doesn't need the range because it can park and recharge autonomously while another vehicle in the fleet replaces it. All large metropolis should ban all cars and only allow robo taxis or special vehicles for delivery etc. With regulation and while avoiding a monopoly. The potential is huge.

But I guess the pseudo-religious hive mind is turning on AI.