(Image Source: Wired)

Stanford University Professor Sebastian Thrun has told the American Association of the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that cars that drive themselves will be the norm by 2030.

According to an article pubished in The Times (London), artificial intelligence will take the helm of most cars which in turn will lead to vastly safer roads. Taken one step further, artificially controlled cars traveling in urban areas are likely to be coordinated by centralized traffic monitoring systems akin to those already used by Air Traffic Control to help maintain the flow of traffic during Rush Hour periods.

Dr. Thrun and his research team were recently awarded $2 million from the Department of Defense for successfully creating an autonomous Volkswagen Touareg that finished first in a race against other artificially controlled vehicles. The professor insisted that the requisite technology is already here and all that's left is attending to the details.

"Controlling the entire vehicle, you have to be able to deal with an unpredictable environment - 99% of driving is easy, but getting robots to do that last 1% safely is the issue."

Dr. Thrun also surmised that the U.S. military should have deployment of autonomous vehicles as soon as 2015.

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