In 2009, Google cofounder Sergey Brin was a part of a team that develop what we know as the worlds first "driverless" car. Given, this car had to be under specialized conditions in order to function, and needed human guidance when it encountered difficult situations, it still was a huge step in the field of autonomously driving cars. Some people think these feats of technology could be revolutionary, whereas people like myself, believe they belong in science fiction. The question is, are autonomously driven cars a feasible thing in today's society?

My argument is complicated, but I do believe that these vehicles will hold no place in our society. The only way these cars could be precise enough and safe enough is if they were the only cars on the road, which is a very unrealistic thing to expect. Besides safety and precision, these cars would absolutely shatter our culture, and what we know as the American Dream. The American Dream being, buying a fixer-upper with your father, and working on it form age eight until age sixteen when you can actually drive it. Not even to mention the sheer amount of jobs that this would kill, and stomp the glass that is our economy into smaller and smaller pieces.

From a devil's advocate perspective, the idea of these cars are actually quite neat to me. What convinces me these are not the right direction for us to be headed in is the fact that they will be run by computers. Trust me, I do not hate computers by any means, I actually have a passion for them, but the idea of having my life in a computers hands scares me. If you have ever done any computer programming or software development, there is often a phrase that is thrown around and it is, "The computer will do exactly what you tell it to do." Meaning it knows no more than what you teach it. When humans drive, they have a healthy fear of speed and the dangers it brings. They also know that there mistakes could cost other people's lives, and it instills a certain level of fear inside you when you're behind the wheel, knowing that it would be there fault if there happened to be a crash. Computers do not care if they crash, or kill someone, or go to fast, unless we teach them to; which, would take an unrealistic amount of time to do.

That brings me to my final point, the legality of the things. They simply could not make it in today's society. Someone random could easily hack in, change destination, swerve off the road, etc. Even if a crash was truly the computer's fault, who would be responsible? Google? The Owner? Drivers shouldn't be allowed on the roads unless they can testify in court. Humans can testify, but computers cannot.

In summary, the idea of autonomously driving cars are neat, but in reality they are just that, a neat novelty. This feat of technology is unrealisticly unsafe, and not a feasible thing for today's society. The effects it will have on our culture, economy, legal system, and most importantly safety, makes these autonomous cars not only unrealistic, but a waste of time and resources to research.