doesn’t really count. It happened, as Google was quick to announce, “while a person was manually driving the car.” 2
Autonomous automobiles have a ways to go before they start chauffeuring us to work or ferrying our kids to soccer games. Although Google has said it expects commercial versions of its car to be on sale by the end of the decade, that’s probably wishful thinking. The vehicle’s sensor systems remain prohibitively expensive, with the roof-mounted laser apparatus alone going for eighty thousand dollars. Many technical challenges remain to be met, such as navigating snowy or leaf-covered roads, dealing with unexpected detours, and interpreting the hand signals of traffic cops and road workers. Even the most powerful computers still have a hard time distinguishing a bit of harmless road debris (a flattened cardboard box, say) from a dangerous obstacle (a nail-studded chunk of plywood). Most daunting of all are the many legal, cultural, and ethical hurdles a driverless car faces. Where, for instance, will culpability and liability reside should a computer-driven automobile cause an accident that kills or injures someone? With the car’s owner? With the manufacturer that installed the self-driving system? With the programmers who wrote the software? Until such thorny questions get sorted out, fully automated cars are unlikely to grace dealer showrooms.
Progress will sprint forward nonetheless. Much of the Google test cars’ hardware and software will come to be incorporated into future generations of cars and trucks. Since the company went public with its autonomous vehicle program, most of the world’s major carmakers have let it be known that they have similar efforts under way. The goal, for the time being, is not so much to create an immaculate robot-on-wheels as to continue to invent and refine automated features that enhance safety and convenience in ways that get people to buy new cars. Since I first turned the key in my Subaru’s ignition, the automation of driving has already come a long way. Today’s automobiles are stuffed with electronic gadgetry. Microchips and sensors govern the workings of the cruise control, the antilock brakes, the traction and stability mechanisms, and, in higher-end models, the variable-speed transmission, parking-assist system, collision-avoidance system, adaptive headlights, and dashboard displays. Software already provides a buffer between us and the road. We’re not so much controlling our cars as sending electronic inputs to the computers that control them.
In coming years, we’ll see responsibility for many more aspects of driving shift from people to software. Luxury-car makers like Infiniti, Mercedes, and Volvo are rolling out models that combine radar-assisted adaptive cruise control, which works even in stop-and-go traffic, with computerized steering systems that keep a car centered in its lane and brakes that slam themselves on in emergencies. Other manufacturers are rushing to introduce even more advanced controls. Tesla Motors, the electric car pioneer, is developing an automotive autopilot that “should be able to [handle] 90 percent of miles driven,” according to the company’s ambitious chief executive, Elon Musk. 3
The arrival of Google’s self-driving car shakes up more than our conception of driving. It forces us to change our thinking about what computers and robots can and can’t do. Up until that fateful October day, it was taken for granted that many important skills lay beyond the reach of automation. Computers could do a lot of things, but they couldn’t do everything. In an influential 2004 book, The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market , economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane argued, convincingly, that there were practical limits to the ability of software programmers to replicate human talents, particularly those involving sensory perception, pattern recognition, and conceptual knowledge. They
Autonomous automobiles have a ways to go before they start chauffeuring us to work or ferrying our kids to soccer games. Although Google has said it expects commercial versions of its car to be on sale by the end of the decade, that’s probably wishful thinking. The vehicle’s sensor systems remain prohibitively expensive, with the roof-mounted laser apparatus alone going for eighty thousand dollars. Many technical challenges remain to be met, such as navigating snowy or leaf-covered roads, dealing with unexpected detours, and interpreting the hand signals of traffic cops and road workers. Even the most powerful computers still have a hard time distinguishing a bit of harmless road debris (a flattened cardboard box, say) from a dangerous obstacle (a nail-studded chunk of plywood). Most daunting of all are the many legal, cultural, and ethical hurdles a driverless car faces. Where, for instance, will culpability and liability reside should a computer-driven automobile cause an accident that kills or injures someone? With the car’s owner? With the manufacturer that installed the self-driving system? With the programmers who wrote the software? Until such thorny questions get sorted out, fully automated cars are unlikely to grace dealer showrooms.
Progress will sprint forward nonetheless. Much of the Google test cars’ hardware and software will come to be incorporated into future generations of cars and trucks. Since the company went public with its autonomous vehicle program, most of the world’s major carmakers have let it be known that they have similar efforts under way. The goal, for the time being, is not so much to create an immaculate robot-on-wheels as to continue to invent and refine automated features that enhance safety and convenience in ways that get people to buy new cars. Since I first turned the key in my Subaru’s ignition, the automation of driving has already come a long way. Today’s automobiles are stuffed with electronic gadgetry. Microchips and sensors govern the workings of the cruise control, the antilock brakes, the traction and stability mechanisms, and, in higher-end models, the variable-speed transmission, parking-assist system, collision-avoidance system, adaptive headlights, and dashboard displays. Software already provides a buffer between us and the road. We’re not so much controlling our cars as sending electronic inputs to the computers that control them.
In coming years, we’ll see responsibility for many more aspects of driving shift from people to software. Luxury-car makers like Infiniti, Mercedes, and Volvo are rolling out models that combine radar-assisted adaptive cruise control, which works even in stop-and-go traffic, with computerized steering systems that keep a car centered in its lane and brakes that slam themselves on in emergencies. Other manufacturers are rushing to introduce even more advanced controls. Tesla Motors, the electric car pioneer, is developing an automotive autopilot that “should be able to [handle] 90 percent of miles driven,” according to the company’s ambitious chief executive, Elon Musk. 3
The arrival of Google’s self-driving car shakes up more than our conception of driving. It forces us to change our thinking about what computers and robots can and can’t do. Up until that fateful October day, it was taken for granted that many important skills lay beyond the reach of automation. Computers could do a lot of things, but they couldn’t do everything. In an influential 2004 book, The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market , economists Frank Levy and Richard Murnane argued, convincingly, that there were practical limits to the ability of software programmers to replicate human talents, particularly those involving sensory perception, pattern recognition, and conceptual knowledge. They
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