thrun

Advances have been so encouraging that Dr. Thrun sounds like an evangelist when he speaks of robot cars.

Thrun said he believed robot-driven vehicles would be deployed in war zones before they are seen in everyday civilian environments.

The cars are never unmanned, Thrun wrote. He said a backup driver is always behind the wheel to monitor the software.

Mr Thrun said he also hopes the technology would lead to the creation of the "highway trains of tomorrow" .

Dr Thrun is not certain that any vehicle will be up to that challenge.

In his post, Mr Thrun claims that automated cars could ultimately cut the number of lives lost in road accidents each year by half.

Some researchers, including Dr Thrun, prefer to stress future civilian applications of the technology.

Part of the instructional software was developed by Know Labs, a company Dr. Thrun helped start.

The instructors are Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, two of the world's best-known artificial intelligence experts.

"AI went through a winter period, " says Google's Sebastian Thrun.

That said, Thrun maintains that Google's accomplishment is remarkable.

This is Sebastian Thrun's vision of the daily commute once we are all in the hands of a robot chauffeur.

For Professor Thrun, the reality of driving is a long way from the vision of freedom promoted by car ads.

Like Daphne Koller, Thrun says that today's AI work didn't always agree with McCarthy's sensibilities.

Thrun predicted that leaps in artificial intelligence would lead to driverless cars on the roads by 2030.

"The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can't be reached today, " said Dr. Thrun.

Dr. Thrun said in a recent talk. "Yes, we can, if only cars will drive themselves. "

But Thrun acknowledges that one day, McCarthy will win the day.