One of the things I find most surprising about discussions concerning the advent of automated vehicles is that, besides predictable worries about the disappearance of jobs that currently require human drivers, there is a serious, and boring, lack of imagination. Most people seem to think the world will be the same as it is now, except that our cars will be driving us around. In this scenario, the main difference between now and then is that we’ll have more spare time to look at screens, since we’ll just be sitting there, instead of focusing on the road and giving the finger to people who slow-turn left when there’s only a short time to catch the green arrow.
Cities have always been hubs of technological experimentation, shaped by the people who inhabit them and the tools they use. We can still see the marks, both charming and garish, from technologies of years past — from old aqueducts to telephone booths to the damage done by cars.
Hours after Uber launched driverless cars in Pittsburgh, aldermen proposed an ordinance to ban driverless cars in Chicago.
At TechCrunch Disrupt SF this year, famed iPhone and PlayStation hacker George Hotz unveiled the first official product of his automotive AI startup, Comma.ai. The Comma One is a $999 add-on shipping before the end of the year, with a $24 monthly subscription for its software, which Hotz says will be able to drive your car from Mountain View to San Francisco without requiring a driver to touch the wheel, the brake or the gas.
