In the United States, cars have served as our little rolling living rooms for decades. Many personal memories, milestones and bonding moments happen in cars. Gary Numan wrote a powerful song of iconic stature on this subject.
What I find most interesting about the traditional way we live with cars is our attitude of isolation, autonomy and power while operating them. Unfortunately, this often leads to unruly and violent behaviors. People drive as if there would be no negative consequences resulting from running people off the road or forcing other cars to slam into various stationary objects. Drivers rage on each other, jumping out of their cars with either finely crafted or makeshift weapons, ready to kill and/or maim. This happens with what appears to be a smug belief that if they just drive off at breakneck speeds, they won’t get caught because their car’s license plates can’t be deciphered by anyone. Of course, we can’t neglect the good old driveby shooting, an aberration of driving culture for nearly 100 years. It seems to me that the territoriality of drivers extends from the car interior to the road itself, and with it a sense of protection and anonymity that suggests the driver feels cocooned or perhaps has returned to the womb…kicking.
Because of this deep personal connection to our motor vehicles, the loss of control to autonomous cars is a painful eventuality to many Americans. If Google has its way, that is exactly what will happen. We’ll have to give up our independence to intelligent machines. Perhaps this isn’t so bad. We’re being told that it’s cleaner, more efficient and less wasteful than traditional cars. By participating in this new way of being transported, we’ll work cooperatively toward eliminating some of the worst of those old 20th century customs. That’s great, but what about the change in social meaning and cultural customs of the car?
Suburbia was built to accommodate cars, urban sprawl implies motor vehicle use. If autonomous cars become the norm, changes in landscape and lifestyle are sure to occur. We’ve seen how technology can quickly and dramatically change behaviour, culture and custom with the development of the cell phone. Having cars that drive us would introduce an increased passivity akin to that of livestock in cattle cars. Our definitions of who we are within the framework of society, how to get things done and what it means to take action, must undergo adjustment.
“I get to work by being transported by a machine over which I have no control, its cooperation is necessary and expected. I’m helpless without it, incomplete”.
The nature, purpose and ramifications of Artificial Intelligence come into question here, inspiring some fascinating speculation.
Humans abstract meaning from material reality, then use those abstractions to re-create reality to meet their needs. Our ancestors needed to obtain food from the world, and abstracted the idea of force increase as necessary to do this, and that abstraction became tools. Artificial Intelligence will probably be making abstractions on a much higher level, in strange new ways. AI can make the idea of transportation into an intelligent entity. Transportation possessing intelligence, what would that be like? What would the tools based on that abstraction look like?
Also, people will need to find other means by which to express the anger and frustration of modern life.
I mean, what will happen to road rage? Some people may be driven to institutionalization if they can’t beat fellow drivers. They have the anger of a troglodyte whose cave has been violated, and it needs to sbe expressed. I suppose sex on the road would be safer. Yet, I can’t help think that transportation is going to much less interesting, both public and private
Ooops, have a look!!!
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