Yes, if there’s any chance in hell of self-driving becoming feasible at scale it will involve pre-defined routes, possibly with other sorts of monitoring systems, and new infrastructure/mandatory equipment for safe pedestrian crossing zones after the first handful of school kids inevitably plowed down thanks to the obviously-not-quite-there-yet image recognition systems.

Likely we’d see some rollback to a more achievable goal of a city-funded fleet of robo-taxis running pre-defined routes with standardized equipment at maybe some years into start thinking “hmmm… maybe we should’ve just improved our bus/rail systems…”

Cities are just as easily duped by guys like Elon Musk as any of these poor fuckers who died actually entrusting their lives to their shitty “autopilot” system. Especially when cities stand to profit from kickbacks very sorts. Don’t assume something like this won’t come at the cost of not investing in the obvious competing tech: public transport.