Beep Beep

From today's LATimes.com:

Within about two years, the first car able to autonomously drive on freeways will be a reality, predicts Sebastian Thrun, Stanford University's guru of robotic cars and the winner of the Pentagon's Grand Challenge race in October.
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At one time, futurists envisioned massive networks of computers running society, but they missed foreseeing the personal computer and the Internet. The ability of individual cars to drive themselves without an intelligent highway network may represent the same conceptual mistake.

The Grand Challenge results this year were a real breakthrough, demonstrating that individual cars could successfully use satellite guidance, artificial vision and complex software to navigate around obstacles, away from ruts and through tunnels.
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The car, named Stanley, was equipped with a global positioning system, a series of laser range finders and a video camera, all connected to a computer that made decisions about how to navigate the course.
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No doubt a human driver could have beaten the car's time, because people can still handle a steering wheel more adeptly than a computer can. But perhaps not for much longer. For decades, the best chess players could beat computers, but no more.
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Nonetheless, Thrun hopes that within two years his team will be able to build a car capable of autonomously navigating a moderately crowded freeway in the Bay Area.

Stability control systems and adaptive cruise control systems already show that car computers can make critical decisions.

But complex tasks such as merging onto a freeway or making left turns in traffic are significant challenges, Thrun admits.

If they ever do get on the road, such cars could transform society. Imagine a commute where you were free to work, read or perform other useful activities as your car drove you to work. [emphasis added]

Wait--people do that already!

I like the idea of a robotic car, being much more sanguine about artifical intelligence than natural stupidity, but given how flaky computers can be, I'm not sure I trust them to drive millions of cars. Sure, computers successfully fly jet planes--but they're extremely sophisticated and far more reliable than anything that would be cost-effective to mass produce for automobiles.

Besides, with my luck I think the end result would be more like the 1977 movie The Car.