Radical Disruption to our Economy and Society (Score 2)

I'm surprised people are talking about whether this should or shouldn't happen. It will. It's a given. It's only a matter of years.

US Politics is often driven by the reliable senior vote, and legal self-driving cars will quickly become legally available in Florida and other states with large retirement populations, and eventually in all states. Google knows this and is already working that angle, which is why the video featured the elderly and the blind.

Entire job categories will soon be wiped out. Taxi drivers will go first, followed by truckers. Other industries are less obvious, but will be impacted - some positively, some negatively. This will affect suburban moms driving their kids everywhere, pharmacies (prescription delivery), grocery stores (more delivery options), and even Home Depot (contractors spend hours driving to and from Home Depot and waiting in line).

Restaurants will be changed. More will offer delivery, and those that don't will let you send your car for pickup. When people do go to bars and restaurants, they will drink more alcohol than before, and may head out more, because they no longer have to worry about driving drunk.

The average Joe will have the transportation resources of what used to be available only to someone so rich as to have a pool of chauffeurs working 24/7.

Police forces will lose speeding ticket revenue, towns and cities will lose parking revenue. Parking garages in medium size towns will empty, and be replaced with other real estate. Commutes to work may lengthen, as people are more willing to endure a long commute if they can work in their car, or sleep.

Every car maker is going to start losing market share to Google unless they offer this. Google's head start combined with their better engineers means that Google might become the dominant software provider to cars. Unless car manufacturers come up with software that is equally safe, Google will soon start making more money per car sale than the manufacturers.

Security and policing will change. Suicide bombers can be replaced by software hackers. Drug smuggling within countries will change. Security guards will be replaced, in part, by cars with video cameras. Warfare will change, with drone cars becoming as ubiquitous as drone planes.

It might take 5 years for these cars to be road legal for non-licensed adults (like the elderly who can't drive). But once that happens, within 10 years all new cars sold will have this ability.