they really mean safer helicopter/air taxis (so quad+ copters). A bunch of tech billionaires are likely behind that inclusion, because they want to be the next air Uber, and it might actually be easier to automate than cars on the road.
no. it won’t be safer.
not once you have to start dealing with air congestion. access to landing locations, Routing. seeing obstructions and maintaining safe flying patterns. basically all the shit you see cars doing now? like running kids over, hitting boulders? when you’re flying… everything happens faster. when you’re flying between tall buildings a hundred feet from the ground; you have half a second to regain control of that aircraft before you smash into a building. There is a reason that helicopter flights over most metropolises are extremely restricted. and AI piloting is going to be just as geographically dumb as self driving cars are- and for aircraft that could be a death sentence for hundreds of people if, for example, they wander into tower-controlled space, or congested airspace on approach to an airport.
by the way “flying car” almost always has meant something that can do both. probably the least ridiculous was the aero car form the 50’s. or from the 40’s there’s the ConVair model 118 ConVairCar which was a massive flop because it’s roof mounted engine drove the wheels on the ground.
it’s only a recent trend where …I like to call them idiots… like Musk…have begun referring to Personal Air Vehicles as ‘flying cars’, and that’s probably to evoke the idea that they could be super common. (nope. they’ll never replace normal cars. Tons of gas is ‘wasted’ in traffic each year, sure. But aircraft will always be less effecient than a car. which is less efficient than a railroad.) which is kinda the same idea of calling them ‘flying cars’ back then… too… listen to to the Airphibian advertisment. This one was somewhat more reasonable… the idea being you convert into a car by removing the propeller hub and tail/wing section after flying into hangarage.
Also, most of the newer things are more or less based off of Moller’s Skycar 400. advances in motor/jet engine technolgy has made it somewhat more reasonable… though, my personal favorite is the Hiller V1 pawnee- which technically it was a ground effect system, but it had the distinct advantage of being intuitive to operate on a level none of the others were. if you can balance on two feet you could safely operate it.
an honorable mention is the Avrocar, which was meant as a close-support vehicle for the army. if you look up the skirts of a hovercraft, you’ll see an avrocar. (it’s problem was that it was horribly unstable, especially outside of ground effect. Slap on a skirt, though, and it operates beautifully.)
Oh. an then there’s the Malloy hoverbikes. all I’m gonna say on that one is that New Zealand engineers are an entirely unique breed.
