In the future, It Will Be Illegal To Drive CarsHow weird does that feel to say, that “it will be illegal to drive cars in the future.” It feels funny because today driving is an integral…
How weird does that feel to say, that “it will be illegal to drive cars in the future.” It feels funny because today driving is an integral part of our existence. We are, in fact, the only species that can even drive a car. Let alone a bus, a semi-truck…
You see there is going to be a major revolution and it is already sprouting. Slowly, but surely, we will stop having to worry about driving and these cars will drive themselves.
Another funny observation is that today we call these autonomous vehicles “self-driving” cars. Eventually that will be redundant to say. Because it will be assumed that cars can drive themselves.
I know this is really hard to picture. But let’s go back through history and use some examples…things even millennials can relate to? maybe.
Well let’s start with Movies with sound. They used to have a special name: calling them talkies. Forever they were called talkies until the tech became so widespread that it was redundant to say.
Fast forward a bit, we used to call TVs with color, “color TVs.” But of course, now it is assumed that all TVs display in color.
Ok how about “camera phones.” It used to be a specialty for a phone to have a camera.
Then of course we went on and dubbed touch screen, internet connected phones “smart phones.” Today, we drop the smart, all phones are smart.
At least for me this is weird. But it is part of the inevitable future. We are moving towards self-driving vehicles (again this will be a comedic redundancy to say in the future).
The reason, though, that we are moving in this direction is ultimately that technology will outperform humans — in perhaps every single way.
The first, and hopefully leading driver (no pun intended) of this change is the obvious safety benefits of not worrying about human drivers. Humans make mistakes. Humans text and drive. Humans drink and drive. Computers don’t do any of that. Well, I hope they won’t. If they start drinking and texting we may all be screwed. Damn I just noticed that I have been calling computer (inanimate objects) “they,” as if computers are human-like.
Another clear benefit will be the extra time we will have. Commutes could now be used to get work done or relax.
Of course, it will become cheaper for freight to operate. Businesses won’t have to pay drivers (That may become an economical concern) and trucks can operate at 24 hours at a time. Computers don’t get tired so don’t worry about that. There is a lot of research and many predictions about this change (with transportation of goods) you should check that out online. Just don’t read any of that dark stuff.
But if you really keep thinking about it, all of these changes open so many doors.
There will be so many changes in:
- parking garages
- “Taxis” ubers whatever
- buying a car
- fast and the furious movies
All of this will look different.
And one day, in the future, we can look back and laugh at this poor speculation of an inevitable future.
#acceleratetheinevitable
Thank you so much for reading 🙂
ps — hopefully they don’t stop making fast and the furious movies.
By jordangonen on June 26, 2016.
Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.