When regular cars first appeared, were they not tested "live" immediately? And yes, there was FUD even back then, and in parts of the world a backslash which resulted in sometimes silly safety rules.
The largest real difference seems to be the speed of communication nowadays, the rate at which public opinion can be manufactured and globally spread.
When regular cars first appeard vehicles had to be led by a pedestrian waving a red flag or carrying a lantern to warn bystanders of the vehicle's approach.
Real cars were an evolution of an existing technology (the carriage). We replaced a horse with an engine and a steering wheel.
In this case have a machine replacing a human and using non deterministic algorithms to do so.
Automated driving ONLY makes sense on specific, well mapped, sensor enabled, pedestrian free roads. Let’s focus on that use case before we let these things take over our towns and cities.
The largest real difference seems to be the speed of communication nowadays, the rate at which public opinion can be manufactured and globally spread.