Jason Koebler writing for Motherboard:

Driverless cars are a disruptive technology not just because they allow you to read or watch TV while a robot does the driving for you, but because car sharing instantly becomes more feasible, auto repair shops become less necessary, people manning the phones at insurance companies become laid off, long-haul truck drivers become obsolete. Instead of losing their jobs to cheaper labor overseas, they’ll lose them because they’re simply not necessary anymore.

“This is different than outsourcing. We’re not just talking about cost savings, it may come down to us choosing between lives and jobs. Not dollars and jobs, but lives and jobs,” Mui said. “I think you have to choose the lives.”

This mindset hearkens back to the infamous Who Killed the Electric Car? documentary.

With so many vested interests and so many billions of dollars on the line, big name insurance companies will never go down without a fight.

But the difference between driverless cars and electric cars is who is fronting the innovation. Google will not be told what to do by insurance companies. Google is too big to have entrenched interests determine the company's strategic planning.

For once, I'm grateful Google is riding shotgun. Unlike the electric car, driverless cars are inevitable.