If you're looking to buy a new car, perhaps you should wait about 4 years--until self-driving, or autonomous vehicles are, here. Google plans to have one in consumer's hands by 2017, and Elon Musk claims to have drivers go to sleep, and wake up at destination by 2019. There will be a host of other car manufacturers releasing autonomous cars by 2020: Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagen, and Nissan. Indeed, by the time 2030 rolls around, the landscape of vehicles and driving itself will be radically different.
This video by The Daily Conversation lays out the promises and questions surrounding autonomous cars
TDC The Future of Driverless Cars
There are, however, two fundamental critiques to these models of the future of driving:
1. More computer control means less human control: Indeed, a computer will not have to sleep, and, with high-powered censors, will be able to provide greater safety. However, we are looking at giving up complete control of our destination to a machine. And if I can wear a tin-foil hat for a moment, this makes me and many others nervous. What if the computer malfunctions? What if there is a lock-down state of emergency, and your vehicle suddenly locks you in 2001 Space Odyssey style and drives you to the nearest government holding place? What if there is a kill switch embedded in the vehicle that is not controlled by you? And, what of all the data of where you're driving, when you're driving, how you're driving is recorded and sent off to third parties? Many will, as many do with phones and computers, trade off transparency for convenience, but what about those who don't want to? This leads to my next critique:
2. Shake up of major industries, means dissolution of jobs: Do we realize the radical shake-up of industries and jobs this will create? Do we realize that driving as we know it will be given over to machines thus squeezing out one of the greatest sources of employment out there, namely courier and transportation services? Do we realize how this will shake up the insurance industry, for as was stated in the video above, there should be no reason to require a license to drive these vehicles given that they'll be computers.
We can watch with admiration and bubble-gum glee all these "amazing technological developments," but the reality remains: this is a future being designed for us that does not serve the interests of the average North America. We're far down the road, the map has been entered into the computer, and the vehicle's on auto-pilot. But is the destination one that we actually want?
No comments:
Post a Comment