Google Self Driving Car Prototype

Google.Blogspot.com

Ever since we started the Google self-driving car project, we’ve been working toward the goal of vehicles that can shoulder the entire burden of driving. Just imagine: You can take a trip downtown at lunchtime without a 20-minute buffer to find parking. Seniors can keep their freedom even if they can’t keep their car keys. And drunk and distracted driving? History.

We’re now exploring what fully self-driving vehicles would look like by building some prototypes; they’ll be designed to operate safely and autonomously without requiring human intervention. They won’t have a steering wheel, accelerator pedal, or brake pedal… because they don’t need them. Our software and sensors do all the work. The vehicles will be very basic—we want to learn from them and adapt them as quickly as possible—but they will take you where you want to go at the push of a button. And that's an important step toward improving road safety and transforming mobility for millions of people.

I wonder if later models will include a manual override feature with steering and pedals or if they will try and push a truly self driving model.

The prototype kind of reminds me of the Johnny Cab from the original Total Recall film.

There is no way I would ride in this thing. I want my hands on the wheel and my feet on the pedals. I have actually had recurring bad dreams about being in a speeding car with no steering wheel or brakes. Nope.

a reply to: Elton

This worries me. I think it is cool having self driving cars, it just puts us closer to this:





Johnny cabs everywhere!

Pretty scary if you ask me!

Dave

It would be great for people that drink and drive ...Gee you could get a good nap while the car drives you home ...I don't think I have enough faith in Google though ....something just not right .

a reply to: Elton

I'm both fascinated and excited about technology such as this.....But also a bit worried...My concern (and I believe it to be a valid one), is how an automated car like this could ever be capable of making split second moral decisions.
For instance, if I'm driving and a wolf or large dog darts in front of my car, I may have to make a split second decision to swerve, or slam on the brakes (possibly putting my life in danger in the process). While under any unexceptional circumstance I would do my best not to hit an animal....If you add a situation where I'm driving, it's dark, the road is wet/icy and there are other cars in close proximity, I may think twice about making a sudden maneuver in my automobile that could potentially put myself and other motorists around me in further danger. Now replace that animal with a small child who has run out onto the road, and suddenly you have a very different situation! I'd be far more likely to risk an accident to avoid hitting a child.

How could a computer make a split second decision in such a situation that by it's nature requires a moral judgement?

They have good points getting drunks home, people who can't drive for whatever reason, reduce congestion on the roads as well and the constant need for more parking spaces in metropolitan areas. I wouldn't trust them yet but given a decades worth of actual testing to cover things like what happens with breakdowns..refuelling etc

a reply to: Elton

I got to get me one of those..

They need to make these, but with a steering wheel and gas pedals just for emergency reasons (or if the users want to drive themselves).

Hopefully they try to make these things as hack proof as possible.

I have several issues with the idea of cars that drive themselves.

Firstly, as someone pointed out already, a computer is not capable of human emotion that affects our judgement and decision making process.

I also have concerns about privacy. My car would know where I went, how long I was there and who was there with me. The NSA taps into everything else, this would just be a new data set for them to gather up and dump in their data storage facility.

I also have concerns with how a computer would handle a New York winter. Anyone who lives in an area that gets snow dumped on them for months out of the year knows very well that driving in that mess is an art form. Is a computer going to be able to safely pull itself out of a car slide on black ice? Is it going to be able to accurately compensate for the much denser slush verses regular snow? Will it be able to tell if the road has been salted yet? How about deer in rutting season? Will it be able to foresee the dumb*ss deer turning into a guided missile when it sees a car?

Sorry, but I can only see these applied to a type of situation where you could rent them to travel specific lanes of the highway system, sort of like a personal train. In regular driving situations, there are just too many variables IMO to make this feasible in the near future.

This combined with companies like Terrafugia, which are researching flying cars, are paving the way to the future we have all seen on tv and are patiently waiting for. Personally, I think its very exciting and would love to see some form of this in my lifetime. With the accelerated growth in technology today it is not just a dream anymore but a viable option and if anyone could do this it will be Google. Sure there might be privacy concerns but by the time this does actually become a mainstream concurrence I believe privacy will become a privilege rather then a right. At least in the US.

BTW, Hollywood suggested this reality by 2032:



We are well on our way