When pressed by a reporter, Google admitted last year that it was developing self-driving cars, and had road-tested them in California. It is hard to identify the cars as autonomous, because there has been a passenger along for the ride in the Google vehicles - they just aren't doing the driving.
Reporter John Markoff writes:
"Although safety systems based on artificial intelligence are rapidly making their way into today's cars, completely autonomous systems raise thorny questions about safety and liability.
Policy makers and regulators have warned that the technology is now advancing so quickly that it is in danger of outstripping existing law, some of which dates back to the era of horse-drawn carriages."
