I believe driver monitoring is necessary to implement a safe hands free system, and to avoid angering the NHSTA along with state DMV regulators.I’m not a fan of this change. The reason it was there in the first place was to support hands-free driving. While you don’t technically need to monitor the driver to enable hands-free, the fact that they did not mention the impact to future hands-free features makes me think they are pivoting away from those plans…
https://rivian.com/support/article/what-hardware-is-included-in-rivian-driver10 exterior cameras help with day-to-day and higher-speed driving, while a camera inside monitors for driver alertness, totaling 11 cameras.