A cautionary word: Whether driverless or manually driven, cars are still eminently and remotely hackable. Random - or not so random - murder by hack from across the country has become a real possibility.

Cab drivers. It scared me since they can easily be hacked.

I'm a 4th generation auto worker in the Detroit area.I have seen too many robots taking jobs away from workers. Robots only help wall street. If we continue in this path, who is going to be able to buy things? Retirees are losing their pensions and pay more for healthcare. Our younger workers only make half the money than us older workers. They do not get a pension

The advent of driverless cars will probably have a profound effect on society as a whole, not just the economy. However as with many other types of automation that has been introduced to the workplace, many new jobs have replaced the ones lost to the automation. Different kinds of jobs, but new jobs none the less.

yes there will be a lot of jobs that will no longer be, but this has occurred numerous times throughout history and will again. The positive side will be that no longer will road fatalities be of a concern.

We love our technology and it has made so many improvements to our lives. Employment loss has been the course. I do not know the answer to this, but it is coming. We are going to have to reinvent ourselves.

i doubt it will do that much, apparently it will free up alot of parking space so that sounds kind of nice

I think the economy will evolve. Driverless technology couldn't proceed without some forethought as to what all those drivers out of work will now do. Labor has to evolve with technology.

As several people have responded in terms of addressing unemployment, I agree but have a thought experiment I like to throw at people when this question comes up.

Imagine 500 years from now, with the advance of automation, what will be the ideal employment rate then? If we carry the rate of progress forward, we need to accept that at some point we will only need less than 50% employment to meet the needs of humanity at which point a capitalist economy becomes irrational.

The goal of progress is high unemployment and that is in fact something we ought to embrace. I am a huge fan of capitalism in general, but it only stands to reason that it is a temporary solution. So, I focus on that. I think we need to start embracing this shifting dynamic and find ways to mitigate the impact of lost jobs and not the jobs themselves. That is not to say I live in an idealistic bubble that transition would be easy, but it seems like the natural consequence.

There will be no fatalities from drunk or under the influence drivers, very few collisions due to going too fast for the road and weather conditions, there will not be any speeding tickets issued since the cars will not go faster than they are set for, no one will need to buy car insurance since the cars will be out of the control of the people who are in them, there will not be any more dangerous street racing, no more parking tickets will be issued because the cars will only be parked where they are allowed. Since the cars will drive themselves, no one will get a ticket for using their cell phone or tablet while in their car or truck, people will be able to get frisky in their cars since they won't have to pay any attention to anything going on outside, there won't be any traffic slow downs from idiots wanting to see what's going on when there has been a collision because there will be so few collisions happening any more, you won't have to worry about having your headlights or wipers on because you don't need to see where you are going, no more blaring horns because no one will have any need for them, brake lights will not be needed because the cars will stop and go as necessary. You won't even have to worry about filling up the gas tank because the cars and trucks will pull into automated refueling stations when they get low.
You obviously have not thought very long or hard about this subject, or you wouldn't be worried about hotels or restaurants going out of business. People will still need to attend to their bodily functions, so rest stops, etc will be safe from disappearing.
The auto mechanics will still be needed to fix the cars as they wear out and break down, so those people won't lose their place in the world.
But if humans are taken completely out of the control of cars, that will piss me off because I like to build hot rods. Yes, I will be very upset if in the next few years I am told that my car must either be converted over to a driverless system or remain parked in my driveway until I scrap it or I die.

Randy

It's one thing to have some cars replacing cabs in a city or suburban area.
It's entirely different to have driverless cars and especially semi-trucks that can drive at highway speeds.
I think it will be some time before we have computers and sensors that are intuitive enough and fast enough to avoid crashes.