So, can't read the article but I did read the ntsb report directly. Basically, it sounds like Uber was not ready, but reassured themselves with "but there's a human driver who can intervene". The fact is, humans are very bad at remaining vigilant for long periods of doing nothing, then needing to intervene at a moments notice. Computers are good at that (and Volvo's built-in safety systems might have worked if Uber had not disabled them), but humans are bad at it.

Volvo has it right: human driver, computer backup. Uber's idea of a human acting as a last-second backup to a computer gets the relative strengths and weaknesses of each exactly wrong.