https://medium.economist.com/whats-it-like-to-ride-in-a-self-driving-car-24015c69cc48

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are one of the most talked-about technologies of the moment. And little wonder: they promise to revolutionise the transport of people, and physical goods, just as dramatically as the internet transformed the delivery of information. But they raise many questions. When will they be available? Will they be safe? Will they make car-ownership obsolete? And most of all: what is it like to ride in a car that drives itself?

I’ve spent the past few months working on a 10,000-word special report on AVs for The Economist, which was published in this week’s issue. The focus of my report is mostly on the long-term implications of AVs, based on the assumption (a reasonable one, I think) that the technology can be made to work reliably in the next few years. Rather than focusing on the minutiae of things like the ever-changing industry alliances, or who is suing who, I concentrated instead on the impact on urban planning, the transformation of retailing and the broader social and political implications of cars that can drive themselves. I spoke to as many urban planners and social historians as machine-learning experts or car-industry executives. All this horizon-scanning and future-gazing was fun. But to kick off the report, I had to actually go in a self-driving car. Which is how I found myself, on a snowy morning a few weeks ago, standing in a car park in Pittsburgh, waiting for an automated ride.