Self-driving cars used to be what was shown in movies to represent the future, yet technology is on the verge of making them a reality. With that, however, come several implications for society such as increased unemployment. Jobs that currently rely on people driving vehicles, such as taxi drivers, truck drivers, and school bus drivers, will all be put out of jobs. Similarly, the issue of safety and security are important to consider. When a person gets into a self-driving car, all control over his life and safety is handed over to a computer. While that eliminates the possibility of human error, issues like hacking become more prominent. If someone were to hack a self-driving car, personal information about the home and work addresses, destination locations, and much more could go into the hands of the wrong person. Another consideration with self-driving cars is ethical decision-making during critical situations. A computer would essentially be given the right to choose who lives and who dies. Another drawback of self-driving cars is the high cost. Not everyone would be able to afford to own a self-driving vehicle; however, in my understanding, the more self-driving cars are on the road, the better and safer it would be due to the common connectivity of all vehicles.
On the bright side, however, there are many positive benefits to self-driving cars. First is safety. The road is a dangerous place that takes the lives of many people every year. The human error element would be significantly decreased with the introduction of self-driving cars. Another benefit would be route efficiency. If all vehicles are able to communicate with each other, then GPS navigators can become even more efficient at route planning and avoiding traffic jams. Third, self-driving cars would likely be more environmentally-friendly than the current cars. Models would likely be electric and require no gas or fuel to operate.
Overall, self-driving cars, like all other technology, have their pros and cons. However, since it is very likely that self-driving cars will become a reality some time soon, society should aim to decrease the negative implications of such technology.