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NHTSA Gives Green Light To Self-Driving Cars

Posted by timothy on from the no-handheld-devices-in-use-by-driver dept.

New submitter tyme writes: Reuters reports that the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) told Google that it would recognize the artificial intelligence in a self-driving car as the "driver" (rather than any of the occupants). The letter also says that NHTSA will write safety rules for self-driving cars in the next six months, paving the way for deployment of self-driving cars in large numbers.

2 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Longer commute, here I come by Lodlaiden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I don't have to lose an hour each way on maintaining moderate concentration, moving out of the suburbs into the country suddenly becomes feasible. Sweet! NHTSA approval is a major milestone in this becoming a reality.

    --
    Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
  2. Re:Google is on crack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe at first, but in the long term humans will not even know what it means to drive a vehicle. Ultimately it will come down to safety... once they get all this figured out it will just be too risky to have humans manually driving. Software can be buggy but humans are reckless. Software bugs can be fixed but we have not figured out an effective way to keep people from being reckless.