We’ve been hearing about Google’s self-driving car for quite some time now. They’ve caused their controversies, they’ve been the butt of their share of Skynet jabs, but at TED this year, people are getting to test-drive (test-ride, really) the machines from our futuristic dreams, and they’re taking video.
According to a Twitter post from Scobleizer One of these lucky passengers posted his ride to YouTube, and we’ll post it below for your viewing pleasure. The passengers were told they would be getting a chilled out, 5-10 mph, stroll through the parking lot. What actually happened was quite different. (Video has some NSFW language)
Self-driving cars is one of those technologies, much like flying cars, that we all wished would magically appear the dawn of the new century, but didn’t. It’s hard to understand what exactly Google plans to do with the tech, as foisting robot cars on the highway systems of the world is no small feat. IBM has already stated that it will use its similarly magical Ken Jennings-destroyer Watson AI to help in medical diagnostics, and that makes them a little less scary. Google hasn’t mentioned any such applications, and we hope they do soon.