It was on a couple of weeks ago and well worth watching if you can find it. Two points they made that I found significant were:

1. Human drivers are unpredictable.

2. Human brains are wired to not pay attention if the technology seems to be taking over competently. This makes human monitoring of cars that mostly drive themselves problematic.

As opposed to replacing it.

However, what seems to happen is that people stop paying attention if the car is operating itself. That NOVA episode aired footage of people doing all kinds of things besides driving in Tesla autopilot mode. And then they showed footage of the crashes.

What we need is CAD (computer assisted driving) which we already have at various levels in many new vehicles. All we need is to do is more of this and we will get the benefits of computer driving without the risks.

But rather, that driverless cars are one of many tools and techs that will assist us in ways both projected and not (much as the computer you typed your OP was ridiculed as a home-device as recently as the mid-eighties).

And since neither you nor I can predict whether the tech will be available in decades or in years (that in fact, would be the pretense you speak of), it will be interesting to see when it finally does cross the Rubicon.

technology. The trim level I bought does not have it, which is one of the reasons I chose the base LX trim. I didn't want to pay for the automatic features I was sure I wouldn't use.

So, I've been on a KIA Soul forum since I bought our first Soul back in 2012. The 2020 models have their own subsection of the forum. A lot of folks have been talking about those safety features, which some call "nannies." The avalable features on various trim levels include Lane Keeping Assist, Front Collision Warning/Emergency Braking, Blind Spot Alerts, and Smart Cruise Control, which adjusts speed to match traffic on busy roads. The last feature is only available on the two top trim levels.

It wasn't long before people started reporting issues with these "safety nanny" features.

The first complaints came from the Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) feature. Several owners complained that the car often tried to steer when there was no reason for an adjustment. After more people mentioned the circumstances, it turned out that each time, it was because lane marking lines were obscured in some way, or missing. The LKA nanny reacted by trying to correct the car's direction. Fortunately, owners can adjust the actions of the LKA and can turn off the actual steering assist function. Pretty much everyone has done that, after being annoyed or alarmed that their car was trying to take control.

Next, the Front Collision Warning and Emergency Braking nanny started getting comments. One driver reported that his Soul suddenly came to a stop in freeway traffic, for no apparent reason. After discussion, it appeared that the car was on a upgrade, approaching an overpass, just past the high point on the road. The Front collision system saw the overpass as a stationary object in the lane and brought the car to a stop. The driver had to press the disable button for that feature to continue driving. Others have reported similar sudden stops on tight curves, where the system mistook a car in another lane as a stopped car in the current lane.

Smart Cruise Control, too, had its share of issues, most having to do with the system mistaking cars in other lanes as being in the lane the car was in and adjusting speed for a car that was in another lane. Again, this tended to occur on curvest.

I haven't seen any complaints about the blind spot warning thing on the Souls, but a Ford Flex I rented recently kept alarming on a freeway, almost every time I overtook a car or a car overtook me in an adjacent lane. I had to disable the feature to keep from going nuts.

The KIA Soul has adjustments to these features the owner can make, buried a couple of menus deep in the computer system, so you can customize how the features behave and how much control you allow them to have. Having done some of those custom setting in other areas, I can say that they aren't easy to get to in the car's computer, and you really need to have the owner's manual at hand to navigate making such changes.

As I said, I chose the base trim level for my own car to avoid having those features. Only one automated feature is on my LX trim model. That is the Automatic Stop and Go feature. It shuts the engine off at stop signs and traffic signals, and restarts it when you take your foot off the brake. I don't care for it at all, since it delays me at the stop for a second or two. There is no way to disable the feature permanently, but you can turn it off, which I do, every time I start the car, before beginning my drive. When I do forget, the first time it shuts the engine off, I push the disable button and it instantly restarts the engine and disables the feature until the car is turned off. Why isn't there a setting to shut this off as the default? Because the feature adds a mile per gallon of economy in city driving, and regulations don't allow the mileage claims if the owner can set it off as a default. That's the word from KIA, anyhow.

Autonomous vehicles have far, far more computer controlled features, of course. But, the issues people are experiencing with the simple safety automated features in KIAs and other cars tells me that we're not there yet with automation.

My VW has all the features you mention and they are wonderful. Anecdotes off of a discussion board should not shape ones worldview. Just as mine shouldn't all of the sudden make you go around telling people how wonderful it all is.

I mention KIA because I own one and that's the owner forum I frequent. I have not watched any VW owner forum.

My post is not in any way about my worldview. It is anecdotal, at best, and uses too small a sample to allow for generalizations. However, the flaws are ones that are being reported. I have no reason to think they do not exist.

KIA is actually a pretty good technology company. No doubt its features were developed based on the latest thinking about such features.

Now, I don't know, but I'll bet there have been similar reports from owners of other brands.

If you look, though at autonomous vehicles, you must multiply the number of computer-driven decision making systems by several orders of magnitude. As other reports have indicated, current technology for autonomous vehicles also has flaws. How many flaws will be permitted in those vehicles will determine how well they perform out on the road.

I'm a KIA fan. I love my Soul. But, mine has none of those algorithm-driven safety features. Instead, mine has me behind the wheel, with over 50 years of accident-free driving experience. I suspect that I'm better at it than any of the current autonomous vehicles, frankly, having experienced so many novel situations that required instant decisions.

What year and model of VW do you own and what trim level?

Advanced age will have an impact, moving forward. It is also an example of an exception, not the rule.

"having experienced so many novel situations that required instant decisions."

You have never made an instant decision. You have reacted quickly enough. That is a good thing. The stats tell me we can do much better.

What I found was that lots of people have similar complaints about VW's "safety nannies" to the ones from KIA owners. It's not really the car maker. It's the technology that is imperfect and that has issues in certain situations.

Lane assist, front collision avoidance automatic braking, and other systems all have people complaining about situations where those systems behaved inappropriately.

So, you may not have had issues with your particular vehicle, but others are having such issues. My concern is shared by owners of all makes and models equipped with those systems. While they work just fine most of the time, when they don't work correctly problems can occur that are caused by the systems themselves.

In fact, here's a video that illustrates the Lane assist problem on a Tiguan. Watch and you'll see what I'm talking about:

They really aren't stuck in a jam. Just the opposite. Tons of the research and testing is now found in everyday vehicles. Making them more safe for everyone. The advances they will bring are huge and will have a positive impact across almost all aspects of society. People fear change. This isn't one I will fear. Thankfully we don't give Luddites power.

is as advanced and reliable as it is ever going to get. Having humans driving cars results in over 30,000 deaths per year. For those who are somewhat math challenged that is a number that is far from zero.
In contrast the technology for self-driving cars is pretty remarkable as is and will only improve. I have no idea what the future looks like for the self-driving car, but I solidly believe it will be the dominant method of piloting before I'm dead.

My major point is that the most knowledgeable and involved people are saying that there is still a lot of work to be done.

Elon Musk's proclamations that it will be ready in 2020 is over optimistic and potentially even dangerous.

Elon Musk is overly optimistic about everything he is involved in. There is lots of work to be done, but there is less today than yesterday and tomorrow even more of it will have been done. I love how autonomous cars need to be 100% crash free to be viable yet we can tolerate over 30,000 deaths caused by human drivers. As cars become more autonomous the improvement in safety will become obvious and the idea that 30,000 could be reduced to 25,000 or less will dominate the conversation. I don't actually think that autonomous vehicles are compatible with human driven vehicles and the latter will be the one that is phased out.

ban cars in cities, build more subways and more rail systems between cities

Reduce concrete and asphalt and reduce the need for it. Why have millions of vehicles carrying, typically, one person, all going the same way to the same destination?

I'll never own a computer-driven car.