There is a lot of talk about self-driving cars, under development at various firms. As a sort of thought experiment, let's consider some ramifications of self-driving cars.
I can imagine self-driving cars damaging the airline and rental car businesses. Instead of flying to another city and renting a car, the busy executive might just program in his destination on the other end, crawl in the back and pop off to sleep, or get out the laptop and get some work done. On the other end his or her car is there to use without the hassle of renting.
Adding to the attraction of this scenario is the dramatic increase in people licensed to concealed carry a firearm. They could take their trusty 9 mm along in the car but not on a plane.
Self-driving cars should, I believe, also be drivable by a human driver. There are times when driving is downright therapeutic, when we seek to explore and don't have an a priori destination in mind.
If people sleep in their self-driving cars, anti-hacking security will be a serious issue. I can imagine someone seeing a car with no one awake therein and somehow hacking the destination to send it to a place the car can be chopped and the driver held for ransom.
Self-driving cars will be a boon to elderly individuals who maintain separate residences but no longer drive. They can make the run to the grocery or the doctors office, or across town to see the kids and grandkids. Such cars will need a roster of "frequently visited locations" similar to the "favorites" section on your smart phone, as well as a way to key in an unfamiliar destination.
I'm imagining executives who work in city centers having their self-driving car take them to work and return home empty. Then, at a phone signal, returning to pickup the exec for the ride home. Two round trips per day could be cheaper than paying for city center parking.
We wisecrack that the typical vehicle has only a driver, in the future many may contain no one at all. Perhaps people will send their car to pickup takeout food, or drop off the cleaning, without going themselves, like sending the dog to fetch the newspaper.
If a self-driving car runs into someone and injures them, who or what is responsible? Is the company which created the self-driving feature responsible? Is the owner, who has no idea how to fix or maintain that feature responsible because he owns the vehicle? Do they share responsibility? The liability issues will be thorny ones.
