I won’t get in a driverless car. I just sent hubby an article about one that was involved in a
Minor accident in Vegas. The driverless car stopped, but a truck hit it. I don’t like the ability of not being able to swerve out of the way.
Why didn’t it swerve out or back up to avoid the collision? One would think it’s simple thing to program. It sounds awfully primitive to just stop and not take any further actions.
These are early days in driverless car technology, and I wouldn’t get in one that had to navigate anywhere in the New York City or the Boston area. I think the one in Las Vegas was limited to 25mph and restricted to a set route between casinos. So a much simpler problem than L5 automation.
Widespread adoption of driverless cars can realistically only happen when a driverless car is better than 95% of the drivers out there. The other important issue to be solved is the one about liability. Who gets sued when a driverless car kills people? The owner? The auto manufacturer?
And what if the best possible decision the driverless car could make involved someone dying. It is the trolley problem all over again.
While driverless cars are still years away, parking structures like the Hive in Oakland should make urban car ownership and driving easier - quite soon. Even a driverless car needs a place to park. 
We considered a house that had a 4-car garage in a 2-car footprint. You guessed - there was a massive hydraulic lift. Passed it because of the annual maintenance and just the general creepiness factor.
A setback for driverless cars:
Yup. An uber autonomous vehicle car killed a woman today 
Still gonna follow the progress of waymo.
Did the car know it hit a person and call 911? If it was late at night and nobody is around, would the car know what to do?
I’m sure the human monitor behind the wheel of that car did.
Eventually, there will be no human monitor. What then?
Umm… there will typically be passengers.
A setback for cars with human drivers: They killed 37,000 people last year.
I could see a car moving from place to place with no driver (between Uber pickups, for example).
At some point when there are no human monitors, you may well have an autonomous vehicle driving with no passenger to pick up passengers. Could hit someone or get into an accident on the way with no one in the vehicle. Would be programmed to stop and report what happened? Presumably the car could provide whatever data it had to some sort of police agency for purposes of reviewing what happened. Not sure what it would do in terms of reporting injuries (or even knowing any injuries happened).
There currently are , IIRC, some cars in parking decks/lots brought up without drivers. But these are low speed events with few pedestrians around.
But part of the appeal for driverless cars is that you will be able to use your phone to “fetch” your driverless car to pick you up. The app will play the Lone Ranger whistling for Silver
The technology is obviously still a work in progress.
A former Waymo (google) employee stole autonomous vehicle technology files and brought them to Uber. Even his nanny ratted him out https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/16/16897592/anthony-levandowski-nanny-accusations-stealing-trade-secrets-uber-tesla-waymo-google-claims Interestingly, Uber and Waymo just abruptly settled their trade secret violation lawsuit a few weeks ago (in the middle of the trial) for $245 million https://www.wired.com/story/uber-waymo-lawsuit-settlement/ and then this happens with an uber vehicle today. Interesting… Sounds like a movie plot.
There’s a good blog post at cyberlaw.stanford.edu about the fatal incident involving Uber.
Tesla autopilot car crashed too.
http://www.newsweek.com/autonomous-tesla-crashes-parked-fire-truck-california-freeway-789177
Uber has bad reputation because of bad business practices. But we don’t really know it totally deserves the blame for today’s crash. People are still investigating.
Howard Hughes almost died twice because of his test flights. But thanks to him we have safer and faster airplanes today.
You know what the most amazing thing about that collision with the fire truck? It did not happen at 65 mph even though the car was traveling at 65 mph. The auto breaking apparently partially worked as the driver walked away uninjured. I do not think Model S is safe enough to protect the driver if it slams into a stationary object at 65 mph.
Yeah, Mr. B and I were discussing the tech. It needs a defensive driving capability - to predict unpredictable human behavior. Humans or animal don’t always cross the road in dedicated crosswalks. But human drivers can predict where to expect a jaywalker and be extra alert in those spots. A soda can is more visible to a radar than a human body… need that extra defensive driving layer of AI.
(Autopilot creeps me out. I don’t use it, but adaptive cruise control is great.)