Someone Take Control

Even though I am never the first in line to buy the latest gadgets (I expect the first few versions to have a few bugs which need to be worked out and I want that to happen on someone else's phone. Also, if you wait a few months the gadget will be much cheaper since nothing loses its value faster than new technology), I still have a great respect for innovation. I like it when companies are out there trying new, risky venture to actually advance society forward and even more excited for them when they finally succeed. But more and more I find that when I first hear about a new proposed invention my initial reaction is to dismiss it. I don't like this side of myself, but the simple fact is that after many examples of being promised revolutionary technology which never gets delivered I am rather jaded. At this point I only want to hear about the product once it has arrived, not while it is still in the proposal phase. Last week I was telling you about the hype surrounding the HyperLoop - the idea which was put forward where people will move around the country in a series of tubes, thus eliminating the need for trains and planes - and how I thought the technology was probably too flawed to ever work properly and even if it did it would take decades to be available to the general public. This week I am sad to sad to say that I have a lot of the same reservations regarding the next great invention which is supposedly only a couple of years away, the self-driving car.

Yesterday Nissan announced that they will soon be putting out the first self-driving car. This lofty claim has been made before but unlike on those occasions, in this case Nissan is putting their money where their mouth is an offering a delivery date of 2020. Now, unlike the HyperLoop which is trying to take a small example of existing technology (the pneumatic tubes used by banks and skyscrapers' mail rooms) and expand it out to its most extreme conclusion, the idea of a self-driving car is not nearly as far-fetched as it would have seemed just 5 to 10 years ago. Back then cars only did as they were told but now every new car apparently comes standard with a voice-activated computer in the dashboard which will recommend the best local restaurant and then when you find a parking space you can take your hands off the wheel and the park assist feature will fit your car snugly between two cars. On top of that there are cars which will hit the brakes if they feel you are too close to the car in front of you, stop if something trips a sensor while you are backing up, light up when a car is in your blind spot and act as your alarm clock if it detects your eyes are wandering off the road. Basically, all the components were in place and Nissan is just trying to pull them together in one automobile.

Look, I like the idea of a self-driving car (even if it is a Nissan, which is one of the car brands I do not fit in). Every time I pull out of my driveway I know I am entering into a world full of distracted drivers who are too busy texting, Tweeting or composing a Facebook status update to pay attention to the fact that they are operating a 2-ton machine which could very easily be turned into a deadly weapon simply by pointing it at someone. And by all indications we are moving towards getting more distracted, not less. The technology genie is out of the bottle and with these dashboard computers acting as mobile hot-spots it is only a matter of time before we are permanently connected to the internet and its many distractions. The thought of taking control away from some of the drivers of these cars actually sounds like a great idea and it would make plenty of lives easier if you could just send the car rather than have to go and pick up someone from school when you have a meeting which runs late. I just think before we go all the way to removing control of the vehicle from these people it would be easier to take away their licenses or at least make the driving test a little harder. Besides, there is something special about driving a car. Getting your driver's license is a rite of passage and that rite is certainly going to lose a little bit of luster when all it means is that you get to program the car's destination into the dashboard.

I must also confess the egomaniac, control freak side of me thinks that a computer could never handle a car as well as I could and hates the thought of allowing a machine to take over. I don't want to sound like a fogy, but there is nothing in my history which leads me to believe my car is going to make the right decision when it needs to swerve to avoid an accident. My GPS has led me on too many obscure routes for me to trust it completely and I simply can't imagine sitting behind the wheel of a car and then doing nothing. I hardly think I am alone with this school of thought. But the biggest issue I have is with the previously-mentioned bugs which come with first editions of technology. It is one thing when the new iPod is released and it is only after a few thousand people buy one that the manufacturer finds out it won't sync with your computer unless you have a certain software upgrade. That obviously sucks, but in a first-world problem kind of way. If these things have issues while going through their beta testing someone is going to die and could take a perfectly innocent person driving their normal car with them. Now, the good news is that 2020 is still a good ways off and even then I highly doubt the first generation of these Nissans will be affordable to the general public. But eventually they will come down in price because that is what technology does. I can only hope they are working by 2050, because it's going to take until I am about 70 for me to trust one of these things.