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Nevada appears ready to gamble on driverless cars, with the state’s recent passage of a law permitting the use of “autonomous vehicles.”

The law, Assembly Bill 511 [PDF], which the Governor approved on June 16, defines these as motor vehicles that use artificial intelligence, sensors and GPS co-ordinates to drive themselves with no human intervention.

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Google Inc. has been pushing the idea of driverless cars and Standford University’s Sebastian Thrun, director of institution’s artificial intelligence lab, works with the company on its project. He says his team has driven 140,000 miles on California roads using the prototype cars.“Our cars have sensors which… can see everything around them and make decisions about every aspect of driving,” Mr. Thrun said in a TED talk he delivered in March of this year.

The idea of a car without a human behind the wheel may seem terrifying, but Mr. Thrun is convinced it would improve safety as human error is behind the majority of car crashes.