Adam Gopnik feels that being unable to drive his masculinity is somehow depleted.
But the blow to my masculinity is real. I sense that I am, even in this properly post-feminist age, in the wrong seat. Not the one (the right front in your country, the left front in ours) where generations of fathers have sat, pressing down on pedals, and cursing the competition on the road. Instead, I occupy the traditional mother’s seat and fill her role – shushing the children when the driver is tired, or changing the music on the radio as the one listenable station fades out into static.
I feel, I’m afraid, the insult to my masculinity so much that when a cop or a garage attendant approaches the car and gives me what I take to be a slightly puzzled, pitying look, I immediately slouch down and scowl resentfully in an impressive impersonation of a veteran driver, whose licence has been taken away after a lifetime of high speed, recklessly entertaining “Dukes of Hazzard” style driving.
Sigh… Utter nonsense of course. Driving is not about competition – unless you are on the track – and it is not about a show of testosterone.
He then goes on to suggest that driver-less cars might be a good thing before thinking about the ethical decisions drivers make on a daily basis. In this, he has a point – computers are good at many things, but ultimately they are only as good as the program put into them by people. So, garbage in, garbage out.
Given the somewhat chaotic environment, nothing will ever induce me to hand over the controls of a road vehicle to a machine. Ever.
Besides, the driver-less motorcycle doesn’t even bear thinking about, but I suppose sooner or later some cretin will think it.
XX He then goes on to suggest that driver-less cars might be a good thing before thinking about the ethical decisions drivers make on a daily basis. In this, he has a point – computers are good at many things,XX
So, he finds it emasculating to be driven by a woman, but not by two bobs worth of electrodes?
Funny little fellow, wears his sister clothes. Don’t know what to call him, but I think he’s “one of those.”
I read that this morning and considered it a glimpse of the future when anti-alcohol campaigners throw up spurious arguments to demand laws to penalise drunk in charge of a pre-programmed, satellite-guided, driverless car. 😉
Whilst the principle doesn’t worry me too much, the thought of a vehicle or vehicles controlled by Microsoft (or ATOS) software fair makes my blood run cold…
Yes, gives a whole new meaning to ‘blue screen of death’ doesn’t it. 😉
You are all much too late.
The driverless car is already here, on test & so far, so good.
And a remote Motorcycle has been tried. Currently in abeyance, because all the big money is concentrating on 4-wheel vehicles.
As the history of the railways shows, the more “Mechanical” safeguards you put in place, the safer it gets.
The human is there as the back-up.
What’s special about cars, then?
And, of course, you need a dog – to bite the man if he tries to touch anything.
The interaction with the environment – a potentially chaotic one. There is more to managing a vehicle than avoiding potential hazards. As the BBC article alluded to, the ethical decisions that we make in the blink of an eye. There are many things that I will happily entrust to a machine. This is not one of them. Also, for some of us, the sensory pleasure gained from the control of the machine is necessary part of the whole process. I am not giving that up without a fight.
I think driver-less car technology (along with increased range EV’s) will make the stupidly expensive HS2 into a massive white elephant and taking the strain from our overstretched Victorian rail network for ‘distance’ commuters.
Imagine a system that allows you to go out of your front door, set a destination and sit back while the vehicle takes you there. On long routes I can imagine a convoy of vehicles travelling close, saving energy as the collective drag of the vehicles would be reduced with ‘your’ vehicle slotting in and peeling off where it needs. The passengers could sleep in the vehicle while it runs as they would not need to be involved at all.
An ‘autonomous’ system (not centrally controlled) would mean that any failure would be limited to individual vehicles – and obviously some redundancy would be needed in the systems much as aeroplanes have now – but with GPS mapping, lane assist and collision avoidance already functioning the step to being entirely driver-less is getting close, fast.
Still got to be parked somewhere!
And the anti-railway hate being spewed against HS2 is informative, to say the least.
They would have to be ‘parked’ somewhere, but they are autonomous vehicles, instead of thinking of them as personal possessions, think of them as taxis without having to talk to a thick necked football supporter about immigrants. They can go away from where people are to be recharged (if they are electric) as they would not need to be waiting within easy reach of anything, you just call for one for your return journey.
I’m not anti-railway, I think it is an important part of mass transit in densely populated areas, but the vast amount of money they want to spend on something for ‘distance’ travel is going to be wasted if workable autonomous vehicles arrive soon – and of course the government of the day will be under massive pressure from the groups that have a vested interest in developing this railway and there will be all sorts of scare stories from the rail industry about the ‘dangers’ of them….