Self-driving may reduce car accidents by 90%, but Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich believes the technology has more to offer than just decreasing collision rates. He said in an interview that he foresees autonomous vehicles doubling as security cameras. Privacy issues aside, the ability to have 'eyes' on the road could be beneficial during Amber alerts, as these cars can spot a specific license plate 'quite rapidly'.
At the Code Conference in California, Krzanich discussed the benefits of self-driving cars – other than reducing road accidents. He also acknowledged the fact that using the vehicle's cameras to 'look' at license plates and other cars on the road could be intrusive on people's privacy. “We'll have to put limitations on it,” he said. “We'll have to encrypt that data and make sure I can't tell that it's John's [car] necessarily. I think there will be rules and new areas we'll have to explore, but the amount of social good that can come from that far outweighs those concerns. We just have to deal with them.”