Unit 1 Reflection

Before this unit I knew about how autonomous vehicles were starting to become an actual thing, although I had no idea about Google’s Waymo. I knew about Tesla’s Autopilot setting, that the car can drive itself but it forces the driver to “check in” by putting both hands on the steering wheel when prompted, it’s not completely autonomous. Before reading the resources provided for this unit I thought autonomous vehicles were completely life changing and that one day I wanted one, but now not so much. I’m realizing how computers have no judgement of morality and in the event of a crash it would need to decide who to injure/get killed. I would hate for my car to have made a decision like that that could permanently change someone’s life. If I were driving in the same hypothetical situation I like to think that I’d be able to avoid injuring someone completely, I pride myself in being really observant of things going on around me when I’m driving. I trust my own driving over a computer’s that could sacrifice the passengers. This unit definitely changed my perspective on completely autonomous vehicles (not so much Tesla’s though, since it is autopilot and requires driver supervision), and I don’t think I would ever like to own a completely autonomous car.