This will totally give new meaning to the term auto-pilot: GM will be launching a vehicle with an actual self-driving system in its 2008 Opel Vectra. That’s right — think KITT, people, but without the smarmy voice (well, we assume, anyway). It will be able to pilot itself even in heavy traffic at up to 60 mph, which is more than we can say for most of our friends, really. It’ll be using lasers, a video camera and a sophisticated computer brain to recognize signs and detect obstacles. Let’s hope the OS it uses is, um, extremely stable.
CMU was working on that stuff when I went there, they had a vehicle that would roam around sometimes. Pretty sure it was military funded though, which as ShalerPunk alluded to is probably the more realistic use.
As long as it’s driving for me, I want mine to swear at the other drivers too.