On Tuesday at Google’s headquarters, the governor of California, Jerry Brown, signed into law a bill to legalize driverless cars. The bill had overwhelmingly passed the State Legislature. Google, which has been building the cars, says they are safer because they nearly eliminate human error. They could also be more fuel-efficient, the company says, and place California and the United States at the forefront of automobile innovation. — bits.blogs.nytimes.com
9 Comments
this seems like it could be huge....
so can i finally be high in my car legally?
Great! I can't wait to sue Google when one of these fucking things hits my car/bicycle/donkey/etc. They've got lots of that $$$ that my lawyers like, yo!
FInally! This should have happened years ago. As a biker, its absurd that the most dangerous part of my life is the ride into work. This will save so many lives.
yes but next they'll hack into bikers brains so as not to damage the expensive cars.
who pumps the gas?
Alexis Madrigal on the potential impact on transit systems. Drawing on work of long-time technologist Brad Templeton he suggests that it is wrong to think of impact in regards to personal autos (ie: everyone will have an auto-drive car instead of a driveable one). Rather impact will be "If one can hire a cheap specialized 'robotaxi' (or whistlecar) on demand when one has a special automotive need...This vision is kind of stunning: imagine the Kiva Systems logistics robots that now speed around major warehouses, but for people. Transportation-as-a-service models could really take off in a world of hyperoptimized robotaxis...So, Templeton's conceit is that if we had roaming driverless vehicles that would show up at your door when you called one, you might be inclined to buy "less car" because you'd get the rest on-demand...Don't think about the driverless car as a fossil-fuel powered car replacement; think of it as one mode of a radically more efficient system: what could you do now within a system that now has free-floating semi-autonomous people transporters? "
"FInally! This should have happened years ago. As a biker, its absurd that the most dangerous part of my life is the ride into work. This will save so many lives."
I understand this idea because I used to bike into work all the time... but recently... as a pedestrian... the main thing I have to look out for are bikers that are constantly breaking the rules of the road: going through stop signs/red lights, riding down one ways the wrong way, riding on sidewalks, not yielding to pedestrians in a walkway etc.
Bikers have a point about cars, but I think it would really help their argument as a community if they too obeyed the rules of the road.
So now not only will we be isolated in our own little gocarts, but we won't even get to control them. How about designing communities that foster community rather than keeping up this fossil feul economy that's polluting our lungs. Not every technological advance is better, sometimes it's just another way to get you to buy more crap.
In all seriousness though, I can't imagine doing what I did through out my 20's with this car, which was to drive into the old ghettos of north eastern cities looking at beautiful architecture to photograph. From one block to the next, I never knew where I was going beyond where north was in relation to some river or other landmark. How will spontenaity survive yet another dolp of techno-convenience? Wait, my i-phone's telling me there's a friend within a three blocks of here, gotta go...