President Barack Obama has spoken about some major problems to consider in having autonomous vehicles.
In an interview with WIRED, Obama said, "The technology is essentially here."
He emphasized that since self-driving cars are making their way into society, the federal government must assure that the public shares in the advantages of this technology.
Business Insider UK wrote, "Obama highlighted how as self-driving cars advance, automakers will need to focus their attention toward figuring out the kind of values to 'embed in the cars.'"
"There are gonna be a bunch of choices that you have to make, the classic problem being: If the car is driving, you can swerve to avoid hitting a pedestrian, but then you might hit a wall and kill yourself," Obama said in an interview.
"It's a moral decision, and who's setting up those rules?", he added.
There is an increase in the number of companies which incline their autonomous vehicle efforts.
Ford ensured a fleet of self-driving cars by 2021. GM and BMW were targeting the same date. In five years, Lyft said majority of its vehicles will be self-driving cars.
Last month, Uber just launched its autonomous car service in Pittsburgh. While Google's robo-cars have driven 2 million miles on public roads.
In a report written by WIRED, some 94 percent of car crashes are caused by human errors. On the other hand, autonomous vehicles have huge benefits. These vehicles won't get drunk, tired or angry. Also, they aren't disturbed by phones.
Obama said, "We have machines that can make a bunch of quick decisions that could drastically reduce traffic fatalities, drastically improve the efficiency of our transportation grid, and help solve things like carbon emissions that are causing the warming of the planet."
In September, Anthony Foxx, US Secretary of Transportation, planned the federal's arrangement with self-driving vehicles. Since the technology is new, the Department of Transportation guarantees to stay flexible and consider the perspectives of automakers.
