Humans may falter when taking control of self-driving cars
The sort-of-self-driving cars of the near future might pose a problem.
Long before we have fully autonomous cars – ones in which we can kick back and catch up on Westworld as our faithful robot delivers us safely to work – we'll live in a world of shared responsibility. Tesla Autopilot and other upcoming advanced semi-autonomous systems require the driver to stay alert, should a situation arise in which humans need to step in and take the wheel.
This handoff is something human-machine interaction designers have spent a lot of time puzzling over. Today, research published in the inaugural issue of the journal Science Robotics highlights a new bump in the road: Human drivers may not be capable of smoothly taking control of their self-driving vehicles.
