MOST of us don’t trust computers completely, and for good reason. Our smartphones freeze and our hard drives crash with disconcerting regularity. Yet we frequently place our lives in the hands of computers, which are embedded in our cars, operate airplane navigation systems and even help conduct robot-guided laser surgery.

Inescapably, computers will be playing an ever larger role in our lives. But exactly what tasks will they be allowed to perform, and how will we use government regulation to evaluate the risks associated with new technologies? These questions will be increasingly pressing as innovations strain the longstanding rules that regulate modern life.

Consider one potentially important technology, the driverless car. The idea is simple: a computer drives the car for you, based on input from the surrounding environment. Putting a computer behind the wheel may sound scary, but in road tests performed by Google and other companies, the cars have had a good safety record.

The benefits of driverless cars are potentially significant. The typical American spends an average of roughly 100 hours a year in traffic; imagine using that time in better ways — by working or just having fun. The irksome burden of commuting might be lessened considerably. Furthermore, computer-driven cars could allow for tighter packing of vehicles on the road, which would speed traffic times and allow a given road or city to handle more cars. Trips to transport goods might dispense with drivers altogether, and rental cars could routinely pick up customers. And if you worry about the environmental consequences of packing our roads with cars, since we can’t do without them entirely, we still can make those we use as efficient — and as green — as possible.