Would you buy an Autonomous Vehicle?

Of course, I would buy one.

But I would wait a few years for the kinks to get worked out, and the prices to settle.

But yeah, that's the future.

Safety benefits aside, I think this is the biggest issue. The OP asked whether anyone would buy a driverless car, but the whole point is that the self-drive concept, taken to its logical conclusion, does away with the need for ownership. It would be a fundamental change in the way most of us have come to view personal transport, given the relationship many people have with their cars whereby they can be extensions of their personality, status symbols, representations of freedom etc. We're going to need a major cultural shift in attitudes.
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That is exactly how I feel. In today's world we are tracked and controlled to the max. Why allow complete control? If government computers can be hacked what is to stop hackers and criminals from hijacking your vehicle and putting your family and friends in harm.

I enjoy driving it is pure adrenaline to rev my engine and control my destination, speed, and safety. My truck is my modern day horse I will not let a computer take that away from me.

One word. Prozac.

Cheers. - Frank

Of course, you've pretty much summed up politics in America

For me? Hell no! No restrictions, I know what's best.
For you? Full restriction, I don't trust you for 30 seconds.

Evry stagnatin' thread deserves an inspirational catalyst.

Mebbe one will roll along this weekend...

Post moved from Lotto thread. - BF

Honestly, even though my life was once filled with fear and anger, I still find it hard to ascertain what yours derives from.

Here's what you need to understand. If everyone adopted your view, which you seem to believe they should, we'd all be content with having never advanced between the horse and buggy society. Air flight would never have progressed beyond hot-air balloons and we'd still be throwing our feces out the window into the main thoroughfare. I could list a multitude of similar examples, but I believe they would be lost on you.

Your small-mindedness is typical of those who lack the courage to face the unknown aspects of the future, head-on - hence, you are mired in an inability to share an optimistic vision of a future that will be filled with things that are laughed at today, or not as yet even envisioned.

I am sure that before the role of autonomous cars are firmly entrenched there will will be some horrific incidents, such as those you imagine. Many people could be killed. That's the process by which things improve to as close to perfection as is attainable by mankind. Nothing comes to fruition without some people, places and things paying a price for the promise of what that progress has to offer. It has been that way since the beginning of time and it will never change. No amount of fear will ever, ultimately impede the natural progression of accelerated progress.

How many rockets crashed and burned before we developed an efficient space program? How many horse and buggies were run into before society had to make the decision to relegate them to the back roads of America as the nation clamored for more speed in getting from point A to point B, regardless of the inherent dangers presented by these newfangled contraptions called 'horseless buggies?'

As our problems increase there will be more and more options presented that many will have a chance to display a gnashing of teeth over. As an individual, most of these won't concern you. By the time the entire population of the planet are eating GMO foods because it will be the only way to feed a burgeoning world population, you'll be dead. That fact, however, will not prevent that necessity from becoming reality.

There are dozens of things on the horizon that many fear and if given a choice, would ban from our future. The fact is, many of those things are what will make it possible to have a future. You can yell, fight and stand in the way of progress, but you can't stop it unless you want to stop civilization.

The GMO's are coming, the autonomous cars are coming, the Robocops are coming, 24/7 360º surveillance is coming, unrestricted euthanasia is coming and those are just a few of the things that we consider bad, or in your parlance, 'evil.' Evil they may be, but they will be offset by major advances in longevity, where crime will be reduced to nuisance levels, where anyone on the planet desiring an education will achieve one, where we won't need a VA fitting our bravest for prosthetic limbs because even if there is a war and a soldier loses a limb, will just graft on a new one grown in a laboratory. I could go on and on with this list also, but since you lack what's necessary to envision such things, I'll stop here.

They don't call it a 'brave new world' for no reason. It is the brave, the forward thinkers, the dreamers, those with a 'can do' way of looking at life that will be the hope for mankind. The highway of history is littered with the fearful, the negative voices, the petty and those without the ability to peer into the future to see how they may be able to make things better as opposed to maintaining the status quo which rarely results in anything of value.

Yes, I'm a dreamer. Since my eternal wish of the human race being wiped from the planet has little chance of taking place, I have moved on to Plan B. How, with all of the perilous challenges facing our world can I be instrumental in transitioning our world to its inevitable future? It's not that I don't have any fear about what we face, it's that I refuse to let my fear paralyze me or keep me chained to a limited vision of what mankind and the science it has created and advanced are capable of.

You should just hide under your bridge, comfortably ensconced in your cocoon of fear. The rest of us will do the heavy lifting, as we understand that not everyone is up for the challenge. The least you can do though, since you refuse or are unable to offer anything positive is to simply pipe-down and let the world get on without you.

If you are unable to contribute anything beyond a voice of fear and opposition, please get out of the way so those with hope and vision can get the job done. It's not at all helpful, nor is it something to be proud of, to denigrate that which you simply don't understand or refuse to be a part of.

We get it. You think I'm an evil person. I can live with that as long as I don't have to live like you, fearful of the world I live in and the world that is yet to come. I may not be able to do anything to facilitate that progress, but I don't plan on doing anything to impede it. That's beyond selfish.

Enjoy your day. :-)

Cheers. - Big Frank

P.S. You'll forgive me if I choose not to engage you on this topic, going forward. It would be pointless.