The city where I live—Yokohama—is very different in layout and density from the U.S. cities shown in that video. My neighborhood consists of many small plots of land, each with a different owner, separated by narrow streets. Unless it all gets wiped out by a tsunami, it’s never going to be rebuilt or have its layout changed—the landowners, many of whom live on their plots of land, would not stand for it.

My house is on the side of a steep hill. If in a few years—I am now 67–I become unable to walk up that hill, the only way I will be able to go anywhere is by calling a taxi. (No one in my family here knows how to drive.) Because of demographic trends, there is a shortage of human taxi drivers now and that shortage is likely to get worse. If I do become significantly less mobile five or ten years from now, I will be able to keep living in my home only if self-driving taxis are available.

So for me, in that very likely scenario, self-driving cars would make my life better. In Japan, there are millions of people in similar situations to mine.