Insurance companies’ and auto accident attorneys will be all over Google. Can you imagine the settlements plaintiffs will get when one of the Google vehicles malfunctions and causes a 20 car pileup complete with Mack trucks and decapitations? If you want to bankrupt a company go right ahead though I have a sneaking suspicion that Google’s intent was to market this to trucking companies so they wouldn’t have to pay salaries. I bet they were already projecting profits on this endeavor.
I think this is for slow speed use, but still. It will take only one visible duck-up to give Google a black eye.
I envision that if/when there is such a thing, Microsoft with its Bing will release a statement to the effect that while Microsoft software is good enough to translate spoken language in real time, they do not attempt to drive cars with it. Google must be AWFULLY confident in this. The bad publicity could hurt them worse than anything crazy they have done with their browser.
If, because humans don’t have to handle every moment of driving but only have to be there to ensure there are no mishaps, there are probably billions to be saved because truckers could routinely handle 14 hour days instead of the current 12 hour days that most do.
The notion that Google will be liable to lawsuits is ludicrous. The technology won’t become widespread until states, or possibly the feds, exclude Google and the manufacturers from liability.
A bigger concern to me is the fact that presently there are systems available to hack into some cars remotely while they are going down the road and do things like turn off the ignition and possibly control acceleration.
With the google car you have the potential for every system of the car to be remote controlled. Kinda scary.