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The Future of Self-Driving Cars

Tomorrow, Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, is scheduled to give a talk on the future of driverless vehicles. As readers of this blog know, I’m bullish on the long-term potential of self-driving vehicles—mainly due to the exponential advances in robotics, nanotechnology, satellite-based GPS/digital mapping, motion sensors and RFID technology.

Nevertheless, I would encourage people from overly excited about the possibility just yet. Society’s resistance to change, government regulation, liability laws, and privacy issues will all impede the transistion to self-driving cars.

Having said that, however, I would encourage readers to watch for the following benchmarks:

#1: The military introduces self-driving vehicles in conflict situations. (Given the number of soldiers being killed and maimed by IED’s in Iraq, the Army has a strong incentive to employ self-driving vehicles sooner rather than later.) I can imagine this happening as early as 2010.

#2: While technical issues and liability concerns will keep self-driving vehicles off the freeway for years to come, there is reason to believe that forklifts operating in more constrained environments will be easier to manage. (There is also less risk of being sued). Therefore, I would look for large companies such as Wal-Mart and FedEx to begin actively employing autonomous forklifts within the next 3 to 5 years.

#3: As the technology continues to improve and the bugs are worked out (which will be facilitated by using the vehicles in real world situations like Iraq), it is feasible that self-driving vehicles will be employed in limited situations on less densely populated stretches of highway or in rural areas. To this end, the U.S. Postal Office, UPS, FedEX, DHL and others might win government approval to employ the devices in limited areas. I can see this happening within 10 years.

As all of these scenarios unfold, not only is the public likely to become comfortable with the idea of self-driving vehicles I can envision a scenario—especially among younger people—where turning over control of the car to a computer becomes the preferred option because it is easier, safer and more convenient.

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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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