I’m sure by now you’ve heard of companies (like Google) attempting a self- driving car. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for it! I think it will be really cool and will definitely be a sight to behold, however just like everything else there are some drawbacks. Here are some risks you may not have considered when it comes to the self- driving car.
1. Commercials – Are you the type of person who fast forwards all your commercials while watching TV? Do you love Netflix because of the “ad-free” viewing? Well you won’t like the commercials that will be popping up in these cars. Your dashboard could be showing you the nearest coffee shop instead of how fast you’re going, and I highly doubt they will be giving you the option to bypass these ads.
2. Third Party Apps – Devices like Vinli and Zubie plus into your car’s OBD II port to connect you with third-party apps that the car’s manufacturer doesn’t have control over. These could definitely be useful, on the flip side, this is a huge potential for an intrusion into your car’s electronic system. It took the security industry 10 years to secure USB ports, we could be looking at a very similar challenge here.
3. Security – Most people take extreme precaution in protecting their online identity. These self-driving cars are sending huge amounts of data to manufactures and there is very little to stop them from sending your personal info out with it. You thought your car was valuable before, now hackers and thieves will have an extremely high value target.
4. Glitches and Viruses – We here at AOS deal with glitches and viruses on a daily basis, our cars essentially becoming computers on wheel makes them susceptible to the same issue you would find on a computer. If a virus or glitch could be as bad as disabling brakes or steering you could be facing some major problems. When driverless cars start to be more main stream any and all systems running on the cloud will be prone to these failures.
Just like cars today, I’m sure self -driving cars will need to be regulated, but unfortunately this won’t happen overnight. And just like the regulations and laws we have today, they were put in place for a reason. With technology advancing so rapidly, and cyber security and safety being so vulnerable the idea of a self-driving car may be more riskier then we think.