The future is now, as tech companies announced plans to test driverless cars on public streets by 2018.
Regulations and legal issues could slow ambitions, but the technology has made great leaps in recent years. The biggest concern isn’t the technology, but public reluctance to embrace the cars.
Thanks to rapid advances in artificial intelligence, sensor technology and computing power, labs from Silicon Valley to Tokyo are making huge strides in robotics that will transform industries from healthcare to agriculture,” Tim Bradshaw wrote in the Financial Times.
However, the technology will develop before drivers notice autonomous cars passing on the left.
“Self-driving cars could take decades to reach every city, even if the first autonomous vehicles are on the road in some places within a couple of years,” Bradshaw noted, due to problems with weather and legal requirements such as laws that require a human in the driver’s seat in case of emergencies.
To avoid some of those problems, Google is running a beta test of sorts on its campus in Mountain View, California. Possibly by next year, employees will have access to an autonomous taxi service. Not to be outdone, General Motors and Lyft aim to launch autonomous taxis on public roads “within a year,” according to Marketwatch.
Even if they work out the technical and legal kinks, the public remains skittish. In a February poll from Morning Consult, 43 percent of respondents said “autonomous cars are not safe,” with 32 percent saying they were safe, and another 25 percent of respondents saying they didn’t know or didn’t care.
Lobbying efforts might get the law changed, but a more robust public relations campaign will be required to get the public to embrace the technology.
