We've all dreamed about the dawning of the day flying cars appear over the horizon. Well, you may have to wait a bit longer for that dream to be realized, but the driverless car could be here before you know it.
Google recently announced they have moved the testing phase of the technology from freeways to city streets, a clue that they feel confident that the self-driving car is inching closer to reality.
Google claims their cars have now driven thousands of miles on the streets of Mountain View, California, a suburban community and home of the company's headquarters just south of San Francisco.
"A mile of city driving is much more complex than a mile of freeway driving, with hundreds of different objects moving according to different rules of the road in a small area," explained Chris Urmson, the director of Google's self-driving car project in the blog post earlier today. "We've improved our software so it can detect hundreds of distinct objects simultaneously - pedestrians, buses, a stop sign held up by a crossing guard, or a cyclist making gestures that indicate a possible turn."
Just as pilot-less drones have revolutionized warfare, cars that can operate with complete independence made significant strides in 2013 and into 2014, led by Google's driverless models.
Google has already demonstrated the technology in a remarkable experiment last year - placing a blind man behind the wheel while the car took him on errands, including a stop through a drive-through. The company expects to see such vehicles available to the public in approximately five years. Before then, including in 2014, we'll see larger steps toward "autonomous driving" - such as improved sensors in cars for parking and avoiding collisions, plus a greater ability to "auto drive" while on the highway.
While the continued progress of self-driving cars is certainly worth keeping an eye on, there's something else that will follow with driverless cars: artificial intelligence. As N.Y.U professor Gary Marcus has pointed out in the past, these driverless cars will need to make split second, life-or-death decisions ("do I risk the driver's life by swerving away from this school bus full of children?") to function properly. Grappling with these issues will not only advance the driverless car but artificial intelligence in general, with equally significant impacts on our society.
Stay tuned on this one.
