Clearly the technology has a ways to go (i.e., installing a cowcatcher and plowing into the unicyclists at ramming speed).

but last time a Tesla self-driving stopped itself on purpose after the driver refused to respond to any of the mandatory driver cues, people blamed the car. #4 | Posted by sitzkrieg

but pulling over and stopping when the driver refuses to operate the vehicle is the correct course of action.
Pull into the fast lane and then come to a complete stop within five seconds? That seems unwise to me. At least drive long enough to pull over into a breakdown lane.

If you're paying attention you don't hit the braking autonomous car. If you can't do that, you'd never make it in Houston traffic, dead man driving.
This wasn't stop-and-go traffic. It was a random car coming to a complete stop at highway speeds in the fast lane for no obvious reason (e.g., obstructions in front of it).

It was between 4-5 seconds. That's a completely average stopping distance.
That still seems to be an incredibly fast stop to expect others to react to on the highway. And I know I would be reluctant to slam on my own brakes if I saw that since I would get rear-ended myself, preferring to switch lanes if I had reflexes to do so.

The car immediately behind it did not hit it, and the next 3-4 cars stacking up didn't hit the one in front of them either. One person way in the back not paying attention is the one at fault.
I think you should watch that video again, on desktop monitor and maximized if possible. The car behind it hit. A couple cars managed to avoid it, but most of the immediately-following cars did not.

It's one thing to say that a single driver wasn't paying attention, but when multiple drivers have a crash, there's something wrong. And no human driver I know would have pulled over like that in moving highway traffic with such a sharp decrease in speed. I think that most would agree that this was pretty clearly bad programming and not the platonic ideal of what a reasonable driver would do if they had to stop on a highway.