By: Stephen Chen

There is no doubt that driverless cars are going to be universal in the future. But now we can’t abandon having a real driver in the car. In fact, right now, no matter what vehicle it is, all need to be controlled by people. Despite this hiccup, thousands of companies around the world are working to be the first company to create a truly self-driving car. Whoever does so will be the first of in a market projected to be worth billions. If we want to improve the technology of self-driving cars, we must understand more about it. Right now, self-driving cars are taking the first step and attempting to turn a driver into a passenger and solve the problem of observing traffic conditions.

So far, this technology cannot really replace human instinct. First of all, it’s difficult to drive at a high speed from even as a human driver who can respond to sudden changes in traffic conditions. For instance, self-driving cars often need to check their surroundings, but they can’t predict all possible scenarios, the realest example for this has to do with a car accident of the Tesla, two people died in this accident due to the excessive reliance on self-driving technology. From human perspective, traffic regulation is based on people not machines. Expecting a machine to respond to problems between people is impossible.

It is also important to consider how this technology might impact people. Employed drivers like taxi or truck drivers are going to be fewer. Most of the people will choose to change their profession and the rate of unemployment is going to raise sharply. In other words, advanced technology will gradually take people’s places.

Maybe after 20 years, most human driven cars might disappear. They will be replaced by a smaller, more intelligent autonomous cars. Some will be private, and some will be shared.

Some will transport one person, and some will transport a hundred or more people. Many will not carry people at all but are busy shuttling among the endless goods brought about by the prosperity of online shopping. Some will help us by simply observing our city or directing traffic. Let’s see and hope if self-driving can give us better lives.