There’s so much going wrong in a May 2022 story about a horse in Ohio taking its drunken passenger home, I don’t know where to begin.

That poor horse.

Surely Ohio police could be better trained in assessing the options here? I know it’s easy to emphasize the risk of a horse when a human isn’t controlling it, like saying dogs shouldn’t be off leash. But police fail at controlling the horse almost as if to prove their own point.

Imagine instead…

1) police wake a passenger non-violently (e.g. water spray)

2) control the buggy to slow or direct it (e.g. even aid the horse to take someone home more safely)

3) stop pretending like parking a car with flashing lights is going to mean something to a horse.

It’s the same story as in 2019, except the last time the officers managed to wake the passengers who then ran into the woods and disappeared.

And that’s the same story as in 2017, except in that case officers were audibly laughing and having a good time jumping into a buggy to bring it to a controlled stop.

All of this begs the question whether AI ever can achieve what horses already have proven can never happen.

A drunk passenger on a horse demonstrates in other words that any drunk in a driverless car still must be charged with DUI. Or does anyone seriously want to take the reins on a debate of whether a sober horse means it was smarter for a drunk human to not be operating it?