This image from June 6, 2008, provided by General Motors shows an ... more >Hollywood fantasy, meet realm of reality. Driverless cars — like the ones featured in the television show “Knight Rider” or movie “I, Robot” — are actually coming to American highways.
Google invented one three years ago and now California is reviewing its road and transportation rules to make space on the highway for automated cars.
The downside of the development? Truck drivers will lose their jobs. And cab drivers. And bus drivers.
“All those jobs are going to disappear in the next 25 years,”said Moshe Vardi, a computer scientist at Rice University in Houston, in an Associated Press report. “Driving by people will look quaint. It will look like a horse and buggy.”
The legal pitfalls are substantial, however. As Megan McArdle opines in The Daily Beast, the “technology is great.” But, she asks, if you’re in an accident or if you hit a child, “who gets sued?”
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Cheryl Chumley is a continuous news writer for The Washington Times. Previously, she was part of the start-up team for The Washington Times’ digital aggregation product, Times247. She’s also a 2008-2009 Robert Novak journalism fellow with The Phillips Foundation. She can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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