Robotic Cars...

I just saw a segment on the local news about robotic cars. These cars will supposedly be able to drive themselves totally hands off. Hell, you probably won't even need a driver at all. Just send the car to the store, and to work, and to the cleaners... or not.

Anywho, these cars will reportedly be programmed to assure the correct right of way is always observed. They will make following too closely a thing of the past. No more speeding. No more running stop signs or red lights. The more I say, the less I like the sound of it. These are all things I write tickets for.

And what happens when iRobot becomes a reality. What do we do when your robotic car realizes its own existence and decides to steal itself? Do we rewrite the vehicle code to include "self theft"? And who do we arrest when the robotic car runs from the cops?

These cars are still a ways off, but there was a demo video of several of them running around a test "street" unoccupied. They seem to do well enough in an urban street environment. However, one famous saying of mine is that computers and robots are only as smart as their dumbest programmer.

As a result, I'm sure the robotic cars won't know how to merge either...