Re:Liability law stops this dead. (Score 1)

You are correct that the transition will be difficult but there is no question that the direction we are headed is for Robotic Drivers. Think back 100 years - the time of the Horseless Carriage - there were a total of 4,000 automobiles in 1905 on the surface of the earth - today we have over 250,000,000. Every minute of every day, two of these vehicles hit one another because of some stupid thing that a human driver does. We can remove the possibility of human error through the use of a robotic driver. Sure we will still have error - machine error because of maintenance problems or the need to learn something new, but these will be orders of magnitude below the number of accidents due to human error today. Our descendents will be able to read on their way to work assured that they will arrive on time and without delay. The robots will communicate with each other and with traffic signals to speed us to our destination. The type of work we will be doing will be significantly different as well, just like the type of work we do today is so much different than it was 100 years ago. In those days, 80% of the population worked in Agricultural activities. Today 80 % of us work in the Service trade - either servicing other people directly or indirectly through computers. One hundred years from now most of those who still work will be servicing robots - this is where the maintenance will come into play and where human error can still creep into the system. The transition will occur in stages with a need for hybrid control that can adapt quickly to the heuristic actions of other people. Most initial systems will be aids that provide monitoring and warning with perhaps some advice thrown in for good measure. As more and more vehicles become automated communication between each of these will allow cars to travel at speed within 6 inches of each other. More cars can get through a bottle neck than before and less bottlenecks will result. The initial use of these fully-autonomous units will be for removing people from harm's way - military is obvious, but also mining, forest fire fighting, search and rescue, travelng in cold climates, earthquake recovery, etc. The lawyers will be robotized as well as the rules become more complex requiring a complexity analysis that exceeds the human mind.