Google's "driverless car" (photo from Edmunds Inside Line) |
Well, the California legislature is currently considering a motion that would permit robot-driven vehicles to travel on the state's public highways. The measure has already passed the state assembly and is expected to reach a state senate vote soon, according to a story in today's San Jose Mercury News. Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign the measure.
The notion of robot-driven cars is not far fetched. Google engineers and their Stanford University counterparts have each created and tested vehicles in which computers do the driving. There does seem a sense of inevitability about humans taking a figurative back seat. According to the Mercury News story, humans can intervene during the drive. I suppose that offers some comfort, but computers don't handle "watch out" warnings very nimbly.
The story also raised a number of intriguing issues, such as insurance liability and legal culpability in the event of an accident. The possibility of issuing a moving violation to a computer was great fun to contemplate. Finally, the article raised the question of a computer crash leading to a vehicle crash. And, despite the smug assurances of electrical engineers, computers do crash, sometimes with disastrous results.
If I were a hitchhiker, I would view computer-driven cars with distaste. The chance of a robot vehicle stopping to pick up someone with their thumb out are nearly zero. Driverless hitchhikers, along with other extraneous "human elements," just don't add up for a computer-driven vehicle.
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