It's true, I've seen those SMART cars all over Europe - and yet, they still look silly.

To be fair, Yahoo was already in trouble before Marissa took over. She was tasked with a turnaround. Sometimes companies fail to 'turn around' for no reason other than they no longer offer much value to the market that isn't served elsewhere already. Carly, on the other hand ..

Kids today think everything is new.

It's the bubble bubble.

It's not me I'm worried about. It's other drivers. Think about the average driver you encounter on the road ... sitting texting, or driving drunk, or driving recklessly, or putting on makeup ... I think, would I rather THEY be driving automated cars? Hell yeah. Over 50% of accidents involve alcohol - driverless cars can't get drunk, to start with.

To be fair Chas didn't really say 'the technology has not yet developed to the appropriate level of reliability' ... he just said he's scared of this new technology and left it at that. If the technology is not trustworthy, well that's a claim that should be backed by something - e.g. pointing to the large number of accidents Google's experimental driverless cars have had for example (hint: it's 'zero').

'Are you living in a cave' is not actually ad hominem. Chas was overtly expressing an anti-technology viewpoint, based on no substantiation other than a claim that he is afraid of technology. In that context, 'are you living in a cave' is obviously just a pointed question intended to demonstrate a point: If he is fearful of technology, why not take that to its logical conclusion? (And that, given he has not taken it to its logical conclusion, there is a contradiction in his worldview.) Sounds like an honest question to me. If it sounded like ad hominem it's only because the shoe fits.

Simply put, having seen the arc of technology advance over the last 30+ years, I still don't trust an automated driver system with my safety. PERIOD.

Yeah, I'm with you, in fact I still don't trust them dang new 'automamobile' deathtraps, that's why I live here amongst the Amish, ain't never had a high-speed freeway accimadent with our trusty old horse carriages.

Lol .. sometimes you just have to wonder at what people write.

I've been on a commercial flight that auto-landed due to a low but dense ground cloud cover that resulted in literally ZERO visibility of not the runway (actually zero visibility of basically the entire city we were landing in). The pilot announced after the landing that it had been an automated landing. My understanding is that the norm is human landing unless there is some good reason to use the automated landing. FTR, it was the smoothest, most perfect landing I've experienced, and I've done a lot of flying.

^This. I wish I had mod points to mod you up. It is absurd that society has such a repressive view of the natural human body.

You don't really have a "right to your likeness" or the courts would have ruled that you couldn't keep photos even if fully clothed in photos - which would be nuts - no, this ruling specifically pertains to permission to keep nude photos. If it was as you say, a model who agreed to do a topless photo shoot and signed an agreement could renegue on the agreement the transaction is complete - no, she cannot, she would be in violation of a contractual agreement. When you're in a relationship, there IS a sort of a contract/agreement, an "implicit contract" - the only reason you can keep the naked photos while still in the relationship is that it is clear the other person has given 'implicit consent' to do so. It stands to reason that the average person would expect that the 'default terms' of such an implicit agreement would probably include that if that person ceased to be a romantic partner, they are generally unlikely to want you to keep naked photos of them (i.e. you cannot claim to reasonably expect that the terms of the implicit agreement were indefinite). So the agreement is fair, but not because of a "right to their likeness" and lack of contract - on the contrary, there's an implicit agreement, but no "right to likeness".

@"some kind of libertarian weirdo" So the only argument you've found against libertarianism is resorting to ad hominem (insults)? That actually strengthens the case for libertarianism.

Look, if you're scared of new technologies, you are welcome to go live with the Amish, I'm sure you'll find many who sure your fear of new technologies. Let the rest of indeed embrace progress.

"I could speculate far into the future, but I'd prefer to start with where we are now."

That's stupid, considering the subject of the entire discussion is specifically about a technology that is on the near-term-future horizon.

British people will always assure their cops never get shot. These cops beg to differ (oh wait they can't, they're dead): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...