Drivers consider it adversarial because it not only "takes away control" but also because it messes up their feedback loop.

I'll give two examples.

From a recent Toyota rental (~2024 RAV4): The lane departure system (which seems to have 2 stages?) gently corrects your steering if you get anywhere NEAR a line in the road. It's not a clearly-artificial buzzing in the wheel or a tug at your hands, it feels extremely subtle, like driving over a seam in the road. Every time I drove that damn thing I found myself second-guessing the surface and wondering if there was something I hadn't noticed in the road.

From a few years ago, some other rental: Automated brake force increase thing. If you abruptly lift off the throttle and quickly move to the brake pedal, it felt something like doubling the brake force. Why? Because apparently studies have found in many collisions, the driver didn't come close to using all of the braking force, because they don't know how to drive. Okay, so it makes you safer, but no can no longer know how much braking force you're going to get from moment to moment?

Do these systems not create a dependency loop where the very senses the driver is _supposed_ to rely upon to safely and smoothly operate a vehicle are blunted (seemingly) arbitrarily by some computer system?

It can both be true that this makes cars safer, while at the same time making drivers hate the systems. I don't disable ABS on my car because it does something I cannot do (high frequency brake control of each individual wheel), but I sure disable ADAS whenever I get a chance!

I just want to outline my overarching concern off the bat with similar sentiments I see expressed exactly in this vein by people: there's a very strong potential for serious cognitive biases, and, frankly, simple flawed logic, to be operant in the statement, "I do not need emergency assistance because I am skilled driver".

The fallacy is that simply because a low-probability event hasn't happened to you, doesn't mean that you wouldn't benefit from assistance if it did. It seems to be a combination of optimism bias/competence bias/dunning-kruger. Systems that can mitigate "human error" are extremely critical and desirable, even by highly skilled/talented/trained machine operators like airline pilots.

Anyhow, it feels like your specific critiques apply to proactive systems, which actually don't really fall under the umbrella of what I'm outlining per se.

Proactive systems are either very intentionally engaged (i.e. lane centering or adaptive cruise) or highly theoretical and not widely implemented, for example, proactive driver assist in TSS3, if enabled (which it isn't fresh out of the factory for reasons you likely outline here), makes subtle corrections to the driver's experience, e.g. engaging brakes when cars ahead slow down or on curves. I have strong hopes for technology like this as being a good bridge between the challenges of full driver assistance and current technology, which, at the cutting edge, is undoubtedly impressive. They may very well not be there yet, which is suggested by Toyota's reluctance to make this the default experience on their equipped vehicles.

Conversely, reactive systems like AEB are widely tested by regulators and, for example, the IIHS, and should only ever genuinely engage in emergency situations. Certain systems do this better than others, which is software/sensor based. Some do exceptionally. Some do not.

Quick note:

(~2024 RAV4): Uses TSS2.5, not TSS3. There appears to be a large difference here in competence. I haven't driven with either system extensively.

> I just want to outline my overarching concern off the bat with similar sentiments I see expressed exactly in this vein by people: there's a very strong potential for serious cognitive biases, and, frankly, simple flawed logic, to be operant in the statement, "I do not need emergency assistance because I am skilled driver".

Sure; and I'm sure you likewise recognize that there's a difference between "This could never help me", "I don't need this", and "I don't want this". People don't live their lives by making game theory optimal choices at every turn. There's also a difference between a safety regime offered as a cost-extra feature on a car, a regulatory requirement on a car, and a regulatory requirement on an airliner.

I think my overall take on that is I don't actually have this strong desire to preserve people's freedom to be unsafe on public roads.

Perhaps, if it were truly a personal decision, I'd be more charitable.