The recent crash involving a Google self-driving car and a bus was “not a surprise”, the US transport secretary has said.
Anthony Foxx told the BBC that accidents were inevitable, but that the emerging technology should not be compared “against perfection”.
Nobody was hurt in the crash, but it was the first time Google’s on-board computer has been blamed for causing a collision.
Secretary Foxx was attending the South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas.
He announced that seven US cities – Austin, Columbus, Denver, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, Portland and San Francisco – had reached the final stage of a competition to receive $40m in government funding for “smart” technologies.
Secretary Foxx agreed that smart technologies could put some people out of work.
“Driverless technology presents a lot of potential for disruption on a number of fronts,” he said.
“It’s unclear to me now exactly how that future unfolds.”
Secretary Foxx is leading efforts to bring self-driving cars to US roads. The Obama administration has committed $4bn to that goal – which includes attempts to develop standardised regulations for autonomous cars across the entire country.