I remember reading the initial reviews of Tesla’s “Autopilot” functionality and thinking that it sounded cool. Even the review videos looked cool. But actually experiencing it–literally feeling the car’s computer make decisions as it approached curves and obstacles–was one of the more profound experiences of my life. For only the second time I can remember–the first time was while using the original iPhone–I muttered under my breath, “I am experiencing the future”. (..)
It isn’t very hard to extrapolate from today’s Autopilot into a fully self-driving future. And after experiencing it, the future feels a lot closer than I had expected.
