Thursday, August 09, 2012

Enjoy your right to drive a car, part 3

Three hundred thousand miles...zero accidents.

Part 1:  why I think it will eventually be illegal for humans to pilot automobiles on public roads, and why we should embrace that future. 

Part 2:  intersections of the future.

I used to think the transition to computer-only driving was at least two decades out.  Now I'm not so sure - it could come much sooner because the technology is moving really quickly.  There are huge economic and safety gains to be had from banning error-prone humans from getting behind the wheel of cars.  Once those gains become apparent, there might be a massive push towards computer-only driven cars.
Considering how dependent on cars many Americans are for transit, the future could be pretty scary from a privacy standpoint.  If a citizen needs to tell the car's computer where to take them, then someone could potentially be tracking where that individual is going at all times.  Other than the government, there are of course other interested parties (spouses?  parents?) that might be keen to check on the car's recent travel history...

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