unmanned robots

Going back to the unmanned robot post, I had a couple questions I wanted to answer...

Andy asked:

aren't robots always unmanned, by definition, and haven't we therefore had unmanned robots for years? Do you mean that the prospect of unmanned automobiles unnerves you, rather than unmanned robots per se?

First of all, yes, it is more unmanned automobiles than anything else that unnerves me. I would have trouble putting my life in the "hands" of unmanned automobiles because I think there are too many judgement calls it could not make. Just as an example, imagine if unmanned cars were programmed to not swerve if a small animal like a fox happened to jump out into the road where the speed limit is high. Now imagine again if instead it was a small toddler who had found his way onto a road (maybe his house was along the road), and the car acted upon what it had been programmed to do and simply treated it as it would any other creature on the road. Although this is a very specific example of what could go wrong with these vehicles, I believe there could be too many ways for a driverless car to screw up.