Beware the machines

 The first time I saw one of those Waymo self-driving cars it freaked me out.

We were in San Francisco and an old friend of my wife's was showing us around -- he lives in Berkeley, just across the water -- and suddenly this car went past and THERE WAS NOBODY IN IT.

"Yah!" I said, or something like it. "Now that is creepy."

My wife's friend chuckled.

"It's the future, Ben," he joked.

"I don't care," I replied. "It's still creepy."

And I stand by that judgment, stubborn codger that I am.

I especially stand by it now that Kyle Shanahan has revealed his Tesla was in autopilot mode -- not exactly the same thing as Waymo, but close enough -- when he caused an accident that (as former Indiana football coach Bill Mallory used to say) boogered him up considerable.

Wound up with a serious concussion, a broken hand, a broken nose, three broken ribs and 40 stitches in his face. Damn near lost an eye, too.

Shanahan said his phone slid off his leg and he took his eyes off the road to look for it, never a winning move in a motor vehicle. This week he added the autopilot detail.

"See?" my inner stubborn codger said. "You can't trust the machines. Doesn't anyone remember how Skynet created the Terminators?"

"Oh, come on," you're saying now. "That was just a movie. Movies aren't real. If they were, 5-foot-7 Tom Cruise and 74-year-old Liam Neeson would be indestructible action heroes."

Well, maybe. But I still don't trust the machines. 

When I'm in a car, I want my hands on the wheel, not some invisible AI Mario Andretti. That's because you'd never know when Mario was going to morph into Fender Bender McGee or someone.

What an epitaph that would be: "He Lived. He Died. He Let An AI Whittington Brother Drive."

No way, baby. I'm not getting a Tesla with an autopilot feature, and not because it boogered up Kyle Shanahan. And I'm for sure not climbing into a Waymo taxi -- yes, they have Waymo taxis now -- unless I'm either unconscious or heavily sedated.

"Where to, buddy?" my invisible taxi driver would say.

And then he'd turn around, and it would be Arnold at the end of the first Terminator, with all his skin worn away and one angry red eye glaring at me.

"Yah!" I'd shout.

If the heart attack didn't get me first.