Can't say I'm much of a fan of this, mainly because I can see once it being created and fully tested/proven, the government would likely pass(or try to) a law that requires everyone to own and use such a thing, and that would svck. I don't want no damn car driving itself! I LOVE driving, it's fun, relaxing, and one of the few pleasures I have in life. I will not have that taken away by a fully autonomous car ><

They wouldn't force you to use it.

Until suddenly a error happens and your going 120 mph towards a train or a truck. I would never trust a computer to drive for me.

Cars are the single most dangerous thing owned by most people. Even for a skilled driver, all it takes is a moment of not paying attention to cause lots of damage. Autonomous cars would drastically decrease accidents and commute time. Also, even if it was the case they were mandated, there would still be places to drive as a human driver, just not in the city on commuting roads (just like you can't race on those roads now)

I live in a big city where I have to drive extremely defensively to avoid collisions with suicidal idiots that dump the responsibility for their own safety on other, more responsible drivers. Anything that would keep those people from driving would be a plus in my book and almost assuredly improve the traffic situation. My commute to work and back routinely makes me want to hurt people.

Your safety is placed in the hands of a computer more often than you know. Why? Because they're more predictable and reliable than people are. We're not talking about some Android app written by a small software company. We're talking about an expert system that's designed to operate a vehicle safely. There would be all kinds of fail-safes involved. If done right you could pretty much guarantee a lower probability of accidents compared with human drivers. Computers don't get drunk, tired, fall asleep, get distracted, eat, text on a phone with their fingers, etc.

Just because you're "in control" doesn't mean you're any safer. People make mistakes all the time.

I'm guessing there's a failsafe for that sort of thing.

My computer already crashes three times a week, and it doesn't even have a car around it yet..

fist there will be conflicting standards of technology, legislature and basically no one will know what the [censored] is going on..

then we simmer down into the hell pit of 'produced by the lowest bidder' because that always works bang on with everything else..

to eventually come to rest in an era of shoddy installments, software security updates during hairpin corners, and then the frigging cell connection is broken leaving you carreening through a tunnel with only half the software updated..


it sounds great on paper, but our current society isn't mature enough to provide this kind of unwavering quality without a hitch 100% of the time.

thus, death traps.


/end semi rant

It does actually, think about it; if the computer malfunctions you're totally screwed, a human can still drive much better than a machine and can react much better to new situations.

I would never go 120 mph towards a truck or a train a computer however only needs a error,hacker,virus,etc.to suddenly make a stupid decision.

Too bad they didn't do this a few years ago, they could have had a "http://scryptkeeper.blogspot.com/2007/09/i-brake-for-shakey-jake.html bumper sticker on the back.
Gaawd I miss that guy.

It doesn't need to work flawlessly 100 percent of the time. It only needs to be safer than human drivers are currently.

Too many people have this false sense of security that because they are in control, they are somehow less accident prone than if the system were automated. This is hardly the case.

Prove it. What evidence do you have that there is anything dangerous about automated driving beyond unfounded hypotheticals?

Just because some of you have issues with where you live and the traffic, doesn't mean it would be ok to force everyone to use cars like this. That's like saying you should outlaw Alcohol(though I'm sure some of you think that would be perfectly acceptable) because some people are idiots and do dumb things when they get drunks. Don't judge everyone based on a handful of idiots. I will never give up my right and ability to drive, I'd soon as rather go to jail, or move to a different country then do that. And that includes even if they just made it mandatory in SOME places(like freeways/interstates).

Cars already have computers that react to new situations to keep you safe.

Now you're just being stupid. news flash: most of the world is automated already and this has already been done on the small scale in warehouses for trollies. Guess what? Orders are fulfilled faster, there are practically no accidents, and never glitch in such a horrific way. The systems are tested to keep that from happening and there would be no need for dish speed capabilities

Read Top Killa's comment (two comments up from yours); a human doesn't make stupid, obvious mistakes like that only a machine does because it's incapable of logical thought.

Like I said, it's not as capable as a human, I wouldn't feel safe letting a mindless machine make life-or-death decisions for me, neither would I feel safe knowing other cars are using this system and may suddenly crash into me because of a small malfunction.

The various software expert systems that are used daily around the world in all kinds of semi-dangerous to very dangerous activities say you're wrong. Like I said, there is a big difference between software you run on your personal computer and something like this. The software isn't going to "get an error" and suddenly go nuts and kill you. Chances are a fatal error would be handled by purging state in the part of the software having the problem while some separate safe course of action is taken by a redundant backup system. Only an idiot would design the software without fail-safes and redundancy to handle things like that. The likelihood of such a system making that kind of fatal mistake is probably a lot less likely than some drunk idiot t-boning you at a stop light.

I managed to drive just over twenty years without being involved in an accident of any sort until some idiot behind me couldn't figure out that brake lights mean you are supposed to stop as well. Knowing that I can only control what I do on the road and not what others do, I'll still take my own skills as a driver over automated computer driven cars any day.

But that means making sweeping generalisations about an entire population of drivers, both good ones and bads ones..

I drive a bike, so I'm biased..


no matter which way you want to throw this, you're dealing with unfounded hypotheticals, since as far as we know there's only the one test subject for google, and a handful of others..

and the day a computer can outride me on a motorcycle is the day I trade in my bike for a walker, start eating dinner at 4:30pm.. wear my trousers above my belly button..

Please list some of these said systems.


Comparing warehouse trollies to actual driving on public roads is a ridiculous notion.

Humans are not very capable when it comes to making logical decisions in a split second.

You, like most people in this thread, know nothing of how autonomous cars work. They are quite robust and the systems that control autonomous units rarely fail.

For some stupid reason though, when there is a failure, it has this dumb glitch where it triggers a haulage that activates the breaks.

Until some hacker who either A: Hates you, or B: Wants to have some random fun killing people, decides to hack the system your car is using(and don't tell me it wouldn't be possible. It's electronic and it would have to have some kind of connection to the internet at large in order to access navigational tools), and over-rides all safety systems and makes your car go top speed into a tree. That can't happen with a car that isn't autonomous. And before you make the argument, yes random people like that could still cut your car brakes, but once they don't have to leave their house in order to create mayhem, I definitely foresee a much larger percentage of people like that coming out of the woodwork. Within the first year of something like this being implemented there would be probably be dozens, if not hundreds of security break-ins resulting in fatal crashes.

Machines on the other hand, are totally incapable of making logical decisions within any allotted time limit unless it has been programmed, and thus they do not MAKE the decision, it has been made for them and the decision to choose this decision has already been programmed. You cannot possibly program a command for any outcome.


Hitting the breaks does not guarantee safety in an accident, actually it can guarantee death under certain circumstances.