I can’t remember if there were self-driving cars in the third Terminator movie, though frankly I can’t remember anything other than that red leather and vinyl outfit Kristanna Loken was wearing. What were we talking about? Oh, yes, the robocarpocalypse.
With the passing of Assembly Bill 511 in the Nevada Senate, the U.S. Department of Transport will now have to draw up rules governing autonomous vehicles on the state’s roads.
The Bill describes such vehicles as any which use, “artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human operator.”
The DoT will now draft safety standards, insurance requirements and a list of approved testing sites for these cars in the Silver State. C. A. Rotwang Sebastian Thrun, a former robotics professor and the project lead on Google’s effort, believes that almost all driving accidents are caused by human error.
At the TED 2011 conference in Long Beach, California, he expresses his views succinctly:
“Do you realize that we could change the capacity of highways by a factor of two or three if we didn’t rely on human precision on staying in the lane but on robotic precision, and thereby drive a little bit closer together on a little bit narrower lanes and do away with all traffic jams on highways.”
If I may use an old, tired joke: “I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.” Though I may change my tune when my driverless Toyota Prius gets into an argument with a driverless Nissan Leaf over who has right of way.
By Tristan Hankins
Via LA Times
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