I've noticed too that most people assume they are better at things then they actually are - not just with driving but in general. There are very few people who can actually multitask, but the majority assume that they are one of those few (even when presented with evidence to the contrary).

Many people swear that talking/texting/browsing/whatever on their phone does not inhibit their driving abilities. The reality is that there is maybe 1 person in 1,000 who is capable of doing so, but that one person is typically smart enough not to do it.

Unfortunately, perception is reality. People's perceptions are that humans are awesome and the best equipped to respond in some hypothetical unknown situation. This clouds people's reception of a computer, which is capable of processing and reacting far faster than a human, that is capable of handling day to day driving.

Are there situations where a computer can't figure out what to do? Certainly, and that's when a human would be needed. But in this case a computer controlled car would pull safely off the road, and alert the driver to take over. Mesh the cars, and eventually all the cars learn how to deal with this aberrant situation.

~shrug~ But I'm an optimist that hates driving. I'm ready to stop.

" do you happen to know how to manufacture everything you use from scratch including microchips, displays, etc.?"

Nope - but I don't have them running anything important without human intervention either.
I don't know how to build a car either, but I'm the one driving it.

FWIW -- I agree that a computer driven car is going to be far safer than anything operated by a human (or monkey, snail, slug, etc). I was just trying to point out why people may inherently be against it.

"Humans are essentially machines much more complex than that, and have tens of thousands of years worth of historical precedent for doing incredibly stupid things despite having accurate information - yet somehow they are more trustworthy than a machine just by virtue of not being a machine? "

I believe it is the fact that we (humans) built it, that makes us not trust it. We know how stupid humans are, how could we create anything smarter than ourselves?

I know some human drivers who have no idea how to merge onto the freeway.

Frankly, I have much more faith in a Google computer driving my car then I do the other humans on the road.

Yes, but those hardly require the expense of Blu Ray. I know my kids don't care about the quality of the films they watch.

The idiocy continues to this day. I bought a new motherboard, and they happily packaged the manual and the wiring guide onto a DVD with the drivers. In order to hook up my motherboard I needed a working system.

Granted, these days it's not that far fetched -- but that still bothered me.

I treat my phone as a consumption device even though I've installed a full html editor, can use google docs, and can compose long lengthy emails. The tools are there -- the process is so painful that I don't do it though.

My phone is a consumption device. Yes, it's possible that it can create things, but that is not its primary purpose. It's equivalent to racing Nascar in a prius. Yes, it's possible, but you won't be very quick and you're pitstops will take forever.

Maybe not everywhere, but in the Midwest they are. Whenever I eat lunch on campus I see college students with their iPads and some have BT keyboards, some don't. but all of them are typing away at them.

I think it's an age thing. College kids today don't appreciate the full diversity of an actual laptop, and instead opt for a consumption device. I don't see the new ipad making this any different - it is still primarily a consumption device, but now it has creation tools.

I must be old, because I still prefer a keyboard to a mouse, and a computer to a tablet.

I loaded Windows 95 from 20+ floppy disks.
I loaded Windows 98 from 1 CD (with a MSCDEX boot floppy disk)

No, they're using iPads with bluetooth keyboards.

12 ply.

"You can stream video over youtube over Wifi!" er...
"You can hook it up to your TV with HDMI" um...
"I can send text messages to anyone" wait...
"Angry Birds!" Ooooo....

"given the current state of air travel hassles in the US, do people even travel for recreation anymore?"

Yes, but not via air travel.

I haven't been to the site (I still like my job) - but I assumed it was slander based on the description.

If it's all true information, sounds like he has a whole different problem.

It sounds as though his issue is with the site, not with Google. Google is just presenting information that exists -- it is the site that is the problem for him.

So....doesn't he know a lawyer or two to address the site in question?