Some reports indicate that allowing the horse to pick his route without supervision leads to accidents since most horses can’t read road signs. They run stop signs, etc.
Horses are more akin to chauffeurs than robots.
Years ago a fellow in my hometown would take his horse and buggy to the VFW club. The horse was the sober driver.
Even though a horse has very limited mental capacity, it is smarter than some AI driven car. The horse has senses and skills that equates to a safer ride.
Personally, I’d trust a horse.
Now you’ve done it. You’ve aroused all the solemn, humorless folks here who are going to now get all worked up over your little anectode and let you know how unsafe it was for your Dad to fall asleep on the wagon while the horse took him home after those Saturday night forays into town.
Good story!
A modern driverless car has more horsepower, but less horse sense.
The horse had more intelligence than most “artificial intelligence” systems.
My friend’s daughter has a masters in biomedical engineering and works as a researcher in a university lab which happens to do research on passengers involved in crashes in self driving cars. Her daughter told her she will absolutely never ride in one after she’s learned how easily they malfunction.
When I used to walk to the grocery store in college, I took my roommate’s dog. The dog always wanted to carry a bag when I came back out fo the store. And the dog would walk ahead of me back to the house and be waiting there with the bag in its mouth when I got there. It was impressive.
My grandfather started a business back in 1908. Horse and wagon to make delivery’s. One day one of the drivers could not make it to work so my grandfather took over the route.
The horse knew the route and made all the stops including a saloon that was not a customer... : )