One of Uber‘s goals as a company is to develop a self-driving fleet of cars. It’d be perfect for ’em, obviously – they can stop worrying about all those pesky moral and labour issues they’re trying their darndest to get around, and we all get to feel like we’re living in I, Robot or some shit.
Well, they’re moving forward with that goal. Later this month, they’re offering the very first self-driving car service available to the public. It’s only in Pittsburgh, and there’s one catch: there will be a driver, who will behind the wheel making sure nothing goes catastrophically wrong. That said, the rides are free. So if the car’s AI decides that you need to die, at least you know you’re not out of pocket.
Eagle-eyed observers have noted Uber’s self-driving cars hooning around Pittsburgh since at least May. The company set up its self-driving research centre in the ‘Burgh because of it’s proximity to Carnegie Mellon University, which has a great computer science department, ripe for raiding.
This doesn’t mean that you’ll be hailing driverless Ubers anytime soon. Uber is at the cutting edge of the market on this stuff, but there’s so much testing and legal mumbo jumbo to carve through before you’ll be whizzing about in Sydney or Melbourne in a cool robo-car.
Something to keep an eye on.
Source: Vox.
Photo: Total Recall.
