Autonomous vehicle startups have raised tens of billions of dollars based on promises to develop truly self-driving cars, but industry executives and experts say remote human supervisors may be needed permanently to help robot drivers in trouble.
The central premise of autonomous vehicles — that computers and artificial intelligence will dramatically reduce accidents caused by human error — has driven much of the research and investment.
But there is a catch: Making robot cars that can drive more safely than people is immensely tough because self-driving software systems simply lack humans' ability to predict and assess risk quickly, especially when encountering unexpected incidents or "edge cases."