“So what’s the big deal just because it’s a car?”
People would be just as perturbed, I think, if you suggested their plane doesn’t need a pilot, or their train doesn’t need an engineer.
> People would be just as perturbed, I think, if you suggested their plane doesn’t need a pilot, or their train doesn’t need an engineer.
In the 1970's I commuted on the PATCO High-Speed Line railway between south New Jersey and Philadelphia every day for most of a decade. No engineer, no driver, all computerized (with 1969-era computer technology) and radio control.
I'd estimate I took a few thousand rides, and of those, I can count the number of times there was a PATCO engineer at the controls on one hand. And those were because of reports of youths making trouble or hassling other passengers. The people who rode the driverless trains were fascinated and/or bored, but not perturbed.
OTOH, planes do need a pilot because otherwise no one would ride them, but when you consider how much of the flying time the plane is on auto-pilot, it seems rather silly. Granted, I probably wouldn't trust someone else's software for takeoffs and landings...