Driverless Cars

I hope I never see one.

Hoping always gets me what I want... except that one time... and, then there was that other time, and the time before that I didn't get what I wanted...

tint your windows then because they're coming

Well I hope they look happier than that car. He's wearing sort of a melancholy face.

Maybe he's unhappy that he has no driver?

He's unhappy because he knows he's gonna die when that deer shoots onto the road in 5, 4, 3, ... and he can't brake in time.

We got 'em now. There's somebody sitting behind the wheel, but he/she sure ain't drivin'.

You beat me to it...phoneheads behind the wheel.

I said driverless, not brainless

I don't expect to see that in my lifetime. In other words, expect it to happen in the very near future.

If they are going to look like that one, then I'd rather have the kind that the Amish use on their way home from the corner bar. You know, the four-legged kind that leave patties in the middle of the road for me to run over.

as long as its turbocharged with AC and a stereo, I'm there

The more important question is: will they see us?

After I've died.

There are a very few driverless cars being tested on public roads already. I expect that sometime in the next five to ten years a severe accident will happen with a driverless test car. How this event gets spun will determine when the general public can purchase/rent one of these vehicles. This post accident delay time window will be, I guess, from three to thirty years. I expect they will be initially so expensive that I probably won't see one in my lifetime

http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/30/uk-to-put-driverless-cars-on-public-roads-by-january/

In 20 years it'll be everywhere....

We're halfway there now.....

Wonderful. '57% of consumers, globally, trust ...' something with which they have absolutely no experience. Zip. Nada. Zero. But they still trust driverless vehicles.

Alrighty then.

This 'infographic' might as well have claimed that 57% percent of all travellers 'really enjoyed that trip to Pluto.'

I wonder how many of those polled trust the words, "No new taxes."

Looks like the Japanese are still the smartest group.

Seriously; The current issues Google Map and other driver direction assist systems exhibit coupled with the high incidence of recalls shared by all automotive manufacturers is a recipe for mayhem and carnage.

I do beleive it is possible but the probability seems remote considering all of the legal and safety considerations.

I choose tele-porting with molecular displacement and re-assembly capability.

Beam me up Scotty!

With more and more ads showing all the neat things that will save you when you are clueless about driving, I'd expect to see them in some places in a few years, say 10 to 20. I doubt I'll see them on our country roads for longer than that!

The smarter the cars become, the dumber the drivers become. As machines become smarter, people become dumber. In 100 years, I predict we won't even be able to wipe our own noses.

...and the planet will be awash with Wall-E machines?

There is one thing that I didn't notice before in the proffered image that bothers me now. This vehicle has cute pseudo-eyes instead of headlights. I realize that the AI in this car may get enough image data from infrared camera in the nose. However, another driver might not recognize this as a car at night without headlights.

"However, another driver might not recognize this as a car at night without headlights."

Nor pedestrians.

They (driver-less cars) will give a whole new meaning to "Blue Screen of Death", "Fatal Error", and "Kernel Panic".

Go to your local freeway on a hot day in rush hour. After a few minutes you will be sitting in a traffic jam. After a further few minutes some of the drivers will get out to talk to each other. The cars that they have just vacated are both driver-less and on the highway.

Driver-less and on the highway.........easy

Driver-less, on the highway and moving.........Oops, my crystal ball just broke. I will get back to you on that one.

We have been seeing essentially driverless cars for not even God know how many years. [Though (s)he can narrow it down to the last 120 or so.]

I think we'll see these 1st as taxis in busy cities. I t will be years after that until normal cars share the road wit these robot cars

NEVER!

I will never ride in one -- YOU can, if you want to -- but I won't.

• PC's have their BLUE SCREEN of death...

• driverless CARS will have their bloody RED SCREEN (aka: windshield) of death.

Up here in Canada we have had a version of these for many years well at least since the cellphone came out and more recently since texting became available. Ours are not at all safe in their own domain or the domain of other vehicles. The solution appears to be flogging but we have no laws that allow this form of communication.

How many of us wonder if, while on the highway, a driverless car will be the last thing we see?

I think Stephen King has had nightmares about that.

Same time -give or take- the Car-less drivers appear. S.M.

Expect to see them when the folks in Congress have the same work hours, vacation times, health insurance, social security benefits, retirement plans, and driverless limousines that ordinary citizens do.

Aside from other possible problems, as all new technologies present, as a counter-terrorism consultant, I am concerned about the possibility of terrorists using the driverless cars as terrorist weapons, whether the vehicles are with or without passengers. My apologies for having to think that way but strange things happen. Something to think about.

Don

Driverless cars can have remote kill switches, like what should have been fitted to the supplied mobile military hardware in Iraq and then captured by IS. Localised kill switches or at least go slow remote intervention may make for more orderly traffic flow when the weather is poor or there has been an accident of some kind.
I know that mobile phone jammers are illegal in the USA, but the equipment is readily available and say if in operation at a play or the opera, then localised mobile phone jamming may make for a safer environment and a more enjoyable show without unexpected disruptions.

I don't see how Insurance Companies will agree to this type of cars. Do we still have to pay Car Insurance?

I suspect the car owners will have to pay some kind of insurance. What I'm not sure of is the question of liability when the AI piloting a vehicle gets into an accident. Will the programming company be liable only if one proves that maintenance was kept up? Will the passenger/copilot assume liability for not preventing the accident? Will the AI digital memory of the accident be considered more accurate than the passengers of any vehicles. Can the memory of other AI vehicles not involved in the accident but in range to sense the incident be called up by the programming company in court?

Good questions.

I will make this prediction: Come that first accident involving fatalities, the forums will be full of voices blaming whoever is US President at that time, and many blaming every president from now until then.

Damn President Franlin Pierce! His reactionary waffling lead us to this silicon takeover.