thought we already determined that that's impossible. Or I guess I don't fully understand what you mean by "basic functionality".
For the Tesla system specifically, I'm not aware that it provides all the necessary functionality in the common use cases. The line for "basic functionality" is a little fuzzy. But it's kind of a "I'll know it when I see it" metric. Clearly not there yet.
I don't understand why you say we determined that such a feat is impossible. Everything I've seen, including from the Tesla system (which has highly non-optimal visual capabilities), suggests to me that computer vision may well be at a point where it can detect the most common modes of distraction.
We already have such systems. Sure they are not perfect, but they do exist. Different systems have different "blind spots".
Yes. Of course some systems are better than others. Some may well be close to complete basic functionality (I don't follow them). The idea would be to largely eliminate the blind spots for use cases which are not actively being subjected to defeat attempt.
I'm sure we could make a list of the basic behaviors we'd like to detect, and I don't see too many technical limitations that would prevent that at the current time. But I'm not aware of production systems that do a really good job of that yet (I know Supercruise is ok, but I have no idea of which ways it can be defeated (does it detect a phone held in a hand or in front of the steering wheel? No idea; I don't pay any attention.)).
Seems like in the next few years the systems will be really good though. Would such a system be able to prevent someone from watching a movie on a phone mounted on the windshield? Probably not. But that's probably ok.
(As a specific example, having a system that forces a user (through trial and error) to hold the phone really low, out of view of the system, is not a good system, if it can't detect where the eyes are looking. That probably is forcing less safe behavior (it's better to have eyes up). Part of a solution would be to have a system that detects head tilt and eye movements. Or perhaps you have another camera with a wide-angle view (similar to the Tesla but perhaps better located high on the top of the A-pillar or something - redundancy might be needed?) which can see said phone and checks whether it is being held or manipulated? My understanding is that all of this is quite possible with computer vision, though I'm no expert on that! Just an example of closing a specific common problem. Is it necessary for a driver monitoring system to have this capability? Maybe not...though personally I'd lump that in the "basic functionality" bucket.)
It sounds like you're asking for a crisp answer here, but I don't think there is one. The idea is to make the systems better and resolve the obvious problems, not to make them undefeatable. You also want to avoid false positives and annoying problems (like wearing sunglasses causing problems, etc.), of course, since that will also increase risk of an accident.