Google: Our Robot Cars Are Better Drivers Than You

An anonymous reader writes "At a robotics conference in Santa Clara, California, the head of Google's autonomous car project presented results of a study showing that the company's autonomous cars are already safer than human drivers — including trained professionals. 'We're spending less time in near-collision states,' he said. 'In addition to painting a rosy picture of his vehicles' autonomous capabilities, Urmson showed a new dashboard display that his group has developed to help people understand what an autonomous car is doing and when they might want to take over.' This follows another (non-Google) study earlier this week that found the adoption of autonomous cars could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Urmson also pointed out that determining liability for an accident is much easier using the data collected by the autonomous cars. At one point, a test car was read-ended, and the data showed it smoothly braking to a stop before being struck. 'We don't have to rely on eyewitnesses that can't be trusted as to what happened — we actually have the data. The guy around us wasn't paying enough attention. The data will set you free.'"

Comments

At what speed?

[Big Smirk]

Autonomous cars will more than likely drive at exactly the speed limit. So on that stretch of highway you were used to doing 65mph in a 55 zone... well that slow car (hopefully in the right lane) will be the Google one.

I guess that's when the human takes over?

Re:Show time

[HxBro]

Some say, "he is actually the robot driving the autonomous cars... All at the same time"

Re:On the desert roads of Nevada, maybe

[jovius]

Solution: robot children and pedestrians. Anyway, wearable computing will make the garments aware of the surroundings. Trying to cross the road? Your pants know better!

Re:Sounds Good

[OzPeter]

if {collision}
then {arbitrary braking profile}
else {real data}

Burma-shave

Re:Liability

[Provocateur]

a new dashboard display that his group has developed to help people understand what an autonomous car is doing and when they might want to take over

How come you left out the next two words "the world"?

They are solving the wrong problem.

[StripedCow]

I don't want a driverless car.

I want an automatic chef cook. Because when I go home from work, I still have to sit in the car for 1 hour, and I still have to prepare my food for 45 minutes.

Now, without a driverless car, but having a chef cook, I'd have to sit in the car for 1 hour, and have a meal waiting for me. A net reduction of 45 minutes.