Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

[Elmore Furth]

Looks like the SkyNet is moving toward consciousnes.

By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: October 9, 2010

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Anyone driving the twists of Highway 1 between San Francisco and Los Angeles recently may have glimpsed a Toyota Prius with a curious funnel-like cylinder on the roof. Harder to notice was that the person at the wheel was not actually driving.

The car is a project of Google, which has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver.

With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control. One even drove itself down Lombard Street in San Francisco, one of the steepest and curviest streets in the nation. The only accident, engineers said, was when one Google car was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light.

During a half-hour drive beginning on Google’s campus 35 miles south of San Francisco last Wednesday, a Prius equipped with a variety of sensors and following a route programmed into the GPS navigation system nimbly accelerated in the entrance lane and merged into fast-moving traffic on Highway 101, the freeway through Silicon Valley.



Google Cars Drive Themselves, in Traffic

[Lorien]

1. We used to have something similar in this country

the rail system. Though I can see how "smart cars" would cut down on accidents, There's always going to be some guy out there reenacting a scene from "the Fast and the Furious" who will trip things up for everyone else.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. Yeah, but they can't keep them from texting (nm)