Having spent far too much time driving around in San Francisco in cars, 18-wheelers, 10-wheelers, and other contraptions, I think the self-driving car is the perfect thing. This way, when some naked dude in a cowboy hat comes walking toward you in the middle of the street at five in the morning, you can just close your eyes and imagine you were somewhere else. There will still of course be the problem of liability for when the computer system burps . . . you can't sue a computer.:rules:

You are forgetting a lot of people like driving... really like driving ...I don't see this being a "thing" for at least 20 yrs if not more ....it would maybe start with taxi cabs....transport trucks ...etc before it moves to everyday cars

The "computer" that you are referring to is a super computer, the K.
I guess technically your correct in you findings, but that beast won't fit in a car. It takes about the same electricity to power that monster, as 10,000 average sized homes in America, or almost 10 million watts of power. That would be tough on an alternator. It was built specifically to see if it was possible to have a processor work faster than our brain. They won.
In retrospect, a cats brain has 1000 times more data storage, and processes data one million times faster than the latest iPad. True.

Not trying to argue about this, but let's face it...which of us would like to be first test dummy in our neighborhoods. Shoot...I don't even like to ride shotgun. I get carsick not being in control.
This is a bad idea from the word go, and will waste billions of dollars in development...more than enough money to end world hunger.

I hate it. I LOVE to drive so everything about an Autonomous car is dumb!

The Terminator & A.I. are coming to get you

Has the potential to put a lot of people out of work, for sure. I'll never buy one, but know a lot of people that should.

I wouldn't want to be the first test dummy. but serious autonomous personal transport is coming one way or the other, and it will save millions of lives. Will they still rarely malfunction and kill people? Sure. But deaths from car accidents will go to nill. Let's just be honest about it, although obviously driving for many folks can be a visceral experience that is enjoyed, x10 for everyone here....Lol....who wouldn't want to ride mindlessly home from work sometimes? Or go across the country on vaca with the fam without having to drive yourself or fly? I envision a world where the hot rod sits in the garage waiting for me to have time off and the automated ride does the daily duties.

Since no one else has said it, congrats! That's an awesome opportunity to have working on the cutting edge of automotive technology. An auto enthusiast site is going to be biased towards autonomous driving, but I think many of us would gladly switch on an autopilot if we could in some situations. Driving the length of I-5 through California, yeah, I would gladly put the car on autopilot and take a nap until I arrived.

Yeah congrats! It'll be interesting and you'll no doubt learn a lot! The ethics and liability intrigue me with this industry. If an accident is unavoidable, how is the value of life decided? If a pedestrian is looking down at their phone and walks into traffic (very plausible) does the car hit the pedestrian or veer into oncoming traffic? Who is responsible when accidents do occur, the programmer?

I definitely understand uses for it but it brings up a lot of questions.

Dave

Thanks for the congrats, I got to say it is pretty cool and I can't share most of what I've seen. I'm not surprised at the responses, expected them even. This won't replace driving our own cars, at least not unless we want them to. But, there are a lot of scenarios where this tech applies that some people, not necessarily here, haven't considered yet. One is, what about all the people that can't drive for one reason or another? I'll say this, they'll never replace my CTS-V!

Of course many of us hot rodders have a viscerally negative reaction to these things along with a healthy dose of skepticism. I may be biased living in Seattle where everyone is a gadget freak but I suspect the population at large will fall in love with self driving cars. They are no talking about selling fully (level 3? ) autonomous cars to the public as early as 2020. There is a lot of optimism around these things right now but I think the timeline is greatly exaggerated. We've had viable hybrid and electric cars now for several years and what are they 1% of the fleet ? And those are fairly affordable as well.

What blows me away and is not mentioned much is the interaction of human drivers and auto cars. Auto cars work great together or as a single unit in , but how will they react to me driving very aggressively around them ? I should be able to easily shove inside of them in packed up traffic lanes, intimidate them while making left turns or whatever other scenario you can imagine. I can't wait to see the frown on the rich, smugly self satsfied google employee pantywaist riding around in his auto tesla when my hoopty '92 Cadillac cuts him off.