Thanks to DARPA-sponsored contests and new work at Google and many car
companies, robot cars are no longer science fiction; they're coming this
decade. Their implications are quite remarkable -- and not just for
transportation, where they can offer a mere saving of millions of lives,
billions of hours and trillions of dollars. Robocars can change how we
live and work, change our cities, change manufacturing, housing.
Crucially in today's world, they also have the potential to make serious
inroads on our energy and emissions problems. The talk will discuss the
merits and downsides of robocars, potential paths to get there,
roadblocks along the way and what the world of robocars will be like.