Thanks for the link to that white paper. I've skimmed the intro, and then skipped to the end for their conclusions. I'll read the whole thing later tonight, but as expected, the conclusion states itself to be speculative, without supporting data, and in need of more research. From the pdf:

> "many experts speculate that the overall benefits outweigh the potential negative externalities."

> "Additional research is necessary on a number of aspects related to AVs, including ..."

Like everyone, I really want to believe having more automated and autonomous vehicles on the road will result in fewer accidents, reduced congestion, and other benefits, but all we really have at the moment is (seemingly well reasoned) speculation since we lack supporting data. Until we have supporting data from repeatable experiments, whether the speculated benefits will both materialize outweigh the negative impacts should remain open questions. The open questions will get answered, eventually, but it will take a few decades and buying into the all the speculated hype at this early and unproven stage is harmful.

I guess I'd rather be cautiously optimistic until we have more useful and repeatable results.