“Google Self-Driving Car Patent Reveals How You’ll Let AI Take the Wheel”
September 15th, 2015Via: The Verge:
A new patent from Google published today has some fascinating insight into how the company thinks that production of self-driving cars of the future might take control from the drivers they’re shuttling around — and how they could give it back, too.
The description of “Google Chauffeur,” spotted by Stanford’s Reilly Brennan, is a pretty straightforward concept. An arm on the steering column (not much different from a windshield wiper arm) could be pulled to engage a car’s self-driving mode; at that point, the system would do a check to see whether it’s ready and able to actually take control from the driver. If it isn’t — the car can’t get a GPS lock, for instance — the driver might see a “Not Available” light on the dash. Otherwise, you’d see a “Ready” light, at which point you can start taking your appendages off the wheel and pedals.
