In Germany, even in the more rural areas, you can typically walk 15-20 minutes to a town with shops, or get a bus even closer than that. That's not so in much of the US. If you don't live in one of the few walkable cities with decent public transit, you're gonna need a car.
If you think US urban planning is in a mess, come to India. I bet these self driven cars can't survive for even minutes on any street.
In India, you practically have to chase street dogs, dodge cricket balls, avoid kids playing on the road, find the road in a road of full of potholes, use breath control techniques to escape the stench and lanes are nothing short of mazes which you can't find a way out unless you've lived years in that area.
I am not sure if self driven cars can ever work here.
Actually now pilots usually don't land manually unless for training (and so on commercial flights usually only in perfect weather conditions) or when there is some serious problem (like engine not working).
BTW, very big part of recent plane crashes was related to human errors in cases which could be handled by autopilot.
My one question is "Who the hell decided that averaging stick inputs is a good idea??
You can't compare the car google is building with semi-automated transportation on rails or in highly regulated air space. It is using completely different technology.
Also humans are notoriously bad at supervising technology. I would much rather drive myself, then having to pay attention all the time and step on the break, if my car does something stupid.
No, I think they are certainly possible and I'd love to see some.
> You can't compare the car google is building with semi-automated transportation on rails or in highly regulated air space. It is using completely different technology.
This discussion was not about technology but about impact. Comparison with other transportation systems which are much more automated right now gives a better impression of the future than unjustified claims about self-driving cars being totally incomparable to anything else.
For example, here in Berlin we have a really good public transportation, which becomes more and more automated every year. In particular, short-distance (as well as long-distance) rails are almost fully automated these days, yet there is still a human sitting in the train's driver's cab for safety reasons.
In other cities like Frankfurt, there are even one or two non-human fully automated short-distance rails. Those are used more in the way we use an elevator, they feel less like trains.
Another example are airplanes, which are driven almost automatically these days, where the pilot is only really required for landing and, again, for safety in unexpected situations.
I think that cars are no different in that regard. There will always be some kind of "driver", although that person will have less and less to do with driving, and more with technical observation, safety, etc.
(As a side note, I think that putting so much emphasis on cars over other types of transportation is some kind of "US thingie". Here in Germany, cars are high valued vehicles, too, but they are generally not a symbol of freedom, independence, etc. Maybe I'm wrong in that regard, but that's my personal explaination of that strange car-centric view on transportation, which leads to so much excitement of self-driving cars, disregarding the amazing progresses in all other areas of transportation.)