After a few days spent on a road trip, I am feeling very much in favour of self-driving cars. An autonomous car could have saved us hours of highway monotony. However, I know that the reality is the technology for fully self-driving cars – cars that can drive in all the conditions that humans can – is decades away. Indeed, some experts put it as much as 30 or 40 years away, given the current state of AI. All this is not to say, however, that the quest to build a self-driving car has been in vain. Modern human-driven cars are far safer thanks to AI-related improvements. In fact, some cars are close to being able to drive themselves in controlled conditions, like on a smooth, broad highway on a sunny day. While we may not have cars that can drive us around anywhere, we will soon have cars that can drive us to many places. And we will definitely have cars that can help us drive more safely – indeed, we already have those now and they're getting better all the time. And that's a good thing, no matter how long full autonomy takes. – Felicity Duncan

Self-Driving Cars Have a Problem: Safer Human-Driven Ones

By Christopher Mims

If you buy one of many new makes and models of car today, you might be surprised to find that, as a standard feature, it can do something your previous car couldn't: It will take over when it thinks you're making a mistake.

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