There is something very American about the automobile.
Cars enable people to pursue their dreams. Remember the feeling of getting your official drivers’ license at the DMV? It was like being let loose into the world and finally feeling like an individual in charge of your own destiny. The automobile means freedom.
Naturally, researchers at Google found a way to give that freedom away to a robot.
As if searching for an extra-credit opportunity, Google researchers are in the middle of testing and developing the first car that can drive without a human operator. By programming a computer to make the same driving decisions as a human, Google’s autonomous cars have driven 1,000 miles with zero help from a human hand.
These robo-cars get on and off freeways, merging flawlessly with the speed of traffic, and a robo-car even drove up famous Lombard Street in San Francisco, which is known for being the steepest and most crooked street in the U.S. The only accident to happen so far was when a robo-car was rear-ended by a human driver while stopped at a red light.
Development of autonomous cars is a major societal phenomenon and should not be taken lightly.
In addition to getting all of the time back you used to set aside for driving, artificial intelligence drives every car like a perfect driving instructor would. Traffic tickets would become a thing of the past, there would be no more road rage, and you’d never worry about bribing a designated driver to follow you around to bars all night.
Engineers also predict that robo-cars will double the capacity of roads, as they will drive closer together and much more efficiently.
But then consider the first time you’ve dealt with a computer about to crash, or infected with a virus. Artificial intelligence is just a science-fiction way of talking about a computer with outlandish processing capabilities, so there aren’t a lot of fundamental differences between your laptop and the chips that control these cars.
When the whirring box on your desk fails, it’s certainly frustrating, but it doesn’t injure or kill you. The question that remains is, who do we trust more to operate large, heavy machinery — robots or people?
It’s not that innovation isn’t great. Futuristic technology is long overdue.
Today’s young adults haven’t forgotten the space-age technology promised by movies meant to portray the future; when Marty McFly and Doc Brown flew around in a hover car, it was 2015. Where is the hover car? Nothing about a car that hovers will threaten the core American virtue of Manifest Destiny.
Honestly, you can innovate, improve or mess with any aspect of my car, as long as my hands are still controlling the wheel. But as long as you’re going to be tinkering with it, I’d like it to use a little less gas. That’s all.
Defend the robots to Sarah at swhitmir@asu.edu
