Steven Levy:

I press a button on the steering column, and a female voice accompanied by an icy synthesizer note — the kind of thing you hear when monorail doors are about to close — intones the word, “Autodrive.” Something catches in my throat; it may be the closest thing I’ll know to flying the Millennium Falcon when it thrusts into hyperspace. In truth, not much really changes. The Lexus rolls forward and rambles down a street in a neighborhood that is all streets and no buildings or people, a Potemkin village of roadways. There is an intersection ahead with a stop sign. The car stops. My foot has not touched the brake.

I am behind the wheel of a Google self-driving car.

There is no doubt autonomous cars are the future so these articles about the early days fascinate me. There are still a lot of issues, both inside the car and out, that need to be resolved before fantasy becomes reality though.