Driverless cars

On February 11, 2015 the UK committed to development of driverless car technology in a big way. Outside of the O2 stadium in London, 4 driverless-car prototypes were unveiled which will actually be milling around on public streets. For its part, the Department for Transport committed $29M (US) to the development of 4 centers to accommodate the R&D. British Business Secretary Vince Cable estimated that the driverless car industry will be worth $1.4 Trillion (US) by 2025. Based on their financial commitment, the British government is interested in carving out their share of the mother-load.

On this side of the puddle (it had been a pond, but the world keeps getting smaller), we are seeing that players such as Chevrolet and Mercedes-Benz are jumping into the driverless-technology fray. No great stretch as some cars here have already been parking themselves. For its part, Google jumped in with both feet about 3 years back and started developing a driverless system called Google Chauffeur. Likely part of their ongoing commitment to incrementally take over the world.

In other news, while cruising through the career sections of various auto manufacturer’s websites recently my eye was caught by a position Ford Motor Company is trying to fill. The positions title? Infotainment System Engineer.

So, my prognosis is as follows: Twenty years from now, your basic young/urban professional awakens to an egg frying itself on the range and toast already on the plate, lightly buttered. After downing his automated repast and chasing it down with his equally automated frappalatté-da (the machine did get his name right!), he springs out the door with his cellular phone/PDA/tablet in hand and jumps into his electric driverless-car. Although it is already late November, the car is warm. Having sensed the owner had finished his breakfast, it turned on its heater 45 minutes earlier. After a brief series of voice-recognition commands, the car boots-up and unplugs itself from it modular charging dock. Putting his heated cup into its powered receptacle and docking his cellular PDA/tablet thingy into an i-Pod’ish slot on the carnival-ride restraint bar in front of him, he proceeds to watch the morning news and crunches his PowerPoint slides while the car quietly and efficiently takes him to work.

The plus side? The traffic segment on the news is gone… The once obligatory attractive traffic-girl has segued into recording on-demand integration-app reviews and can be watched on an auxiliary screen on the dash. The apps may be downloaded real-time via the cars’ built-in 40G data-connection with the purchase costs being automatically appended to the car-lease.

I am conflicted.

Based on some of the driving behaviors I’ve seen recently, I’d swear some cars were already driverless. The operators were still behind the wheel though, but so enraptured in their smart-phone that they were oblivious to the traffic around them.  And so it appears that there is indeed safety to be had, deaths to avert and additional “productivity” to be gained by this automotive technological onslaught.

So is it irony or insanity that allows us to say “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” and develop even more technology to avert the looming disaster that developing technology has caused us in the first place? Have to keep that ball rolling I guess.

                                                                                                                                                               © 2015 D.W. Williams