Depends on where you are in the world.

Isn’t sex ed, deescalation and abuse prevention part of the standard kindergarten schedule since 30 years?

Even better!

Which way shall we choose

• substitute pedestrians by autonomous bipedal robots?
• develop autonomous exoskeletons which have to be used by pedestrians?
• Or aim high and develope injectable nano-sized neuro implants that take care of the autonomization of pedestrians?
• other options?

🤔difficult choice.

Well, I do use a car that is able to drive (almost) autonomous on a highway, so I know that the tech to drive on highways exist since several years.

All the difficult stuff – slow traffic, parking cars, crossings, pedestrians… – does not exist on highways.

The only problem that still remains is the problem you mention: what to do in case of trouble?

Of course you have to stop on a highway to prevent an accident or in case of an emergency. That’s exactly what humans do. But then humans get out of the car, set up warning signs, get help &c. Cars cannot do this. The result is reported in this article.

I’m not sure your idea of 70s and 80s IT infrastructure is historically accurate.

50 years ago it was technically impossible to rent time on a mainframe/server owned by a third party without having physical access to the hardware.

You, or to be more accurate, your company would buy a mainframe and hire a mathematician turned programmer to write the software you need.

Even if – later in the course of IT development – you/your company did not develop your own software but bought proprietary software this software was technically not able to “call back home” until internet connection became standard.

So no, computers did not start with “the corporate elite” controlling them.

Computerized cars, on the other hand, are controlled by their manufycturers since they were introduced. There is no open source alternative.

Open standards for computerized cars would be great — but I’m very pessimistic they will evolve unless publically funded and/or enforced.

Just ban pedestrians. Problem solved,

The discussed incident does not involve driving assist systems, driverless autonomous taxis are already on the streets:

A number of Cruise driverless vehicles were stopped in the middle of the streets of the Sunset District after Outside Lands in Golden Gate Park on Aug. 11, 2023.

Autonomous driving isn’t necessarily controlled by a corporation any more than your PC is.

That’s just outright wrong.

Modern cars communicate with their manufacturer, and we don’t have any means to control this communication.

I can disconnect my PC from the internet, I cannot disconnect my car. I can install whatever OS and apps pleases me on my PC, I cannot do anything about the software on my car’s computer.

So, while I can take full control of my PC if it pleases me, I cannot take any control of my car.

Why? Driving on highways is the easiest kind of driving?