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Comment by Olscore | Hacker News Reader

I don't want driverless cars because half the time I don't even know where I am going. I routinely drive aimlessly around to discover new locations, listen to music and explore. Could driverless cars be programmed for a "scenic mode" and take me on curated tours by other people? Sure, yeah that might be cool. Though nothing will replace the spontaneity of deciding street by street, if I should go left, right or straight at an intersection; where I should stop to enjoy food or drink in an unfamiliar place; or accidentally discovering a part of town I never knew existed. Driverless cars, to me, feels like a small death in the spirit of human exploration.

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So why can't you just say turn left or turn right etc... Just not being the one driving.

I've done exactly what you've described but also had the passenger telling me spontaneity saying go left right forward.

There is nothing inherent that says you can't do that with autonomous cars. But also it's likely that there will always be cars you can drive for fun just like you can still ride horses for fun.

Even better options:

"pick a random route"

"pick the least-traveled route over the last three months within 50 miles of my location"

Just because it's a on a map doesn't mean it's actually a maintained road.

I think you'd very quickly wind up going down an unmaintained dirt road and getting stuck.

Also, if it's the car itself doing the driving, you're free to look around the surroundings and say "find a turn onto ____ street going north" when you see something over there thataway that looks interesting. (My city has one-way streets and no-turn streets everywhere, so getting from point A to point B can often be much, much harder than it looks.)

There's no reason you couldn't do that in an autonomous car, you just wouldn't directly control the car. E.g., you instruct the car to change its route at your whim.

People who own dedicated 4x4 rigs, weekend race cars, classic cars, etc. don't drive them every day.

If you enjoy wandering around in your city: keep a car and do that.

Stumbleupon for automated cars. Get to it.

Just use a bicycle for that.

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