George Buys a New Car, and Then...

George Buys A New Car, and Then…

January 3, 2030

George, a man in his early fifties, was in a car dealership staring totally enchanted by the new car he was just about to purchase. It was the newest incarnation of cars. It was a Ford Computermatic. His then current car was a Ford, but it had reached the end of its driving utility. George first checked out the readily visible unique features of this car. There were video cameras above each headlight, one on the back bumper and an antenna on top of the car, all of which would inform the computer-in-charge of what other cars, traffic lights and weather conditions were doing. George also stared at an absence where there should be a substance. He saw that there was no steering wheel, and when he came close to what in earlier cars was the driver’s side, he also noted that there was no brake and no accelerator pedal either. To the right there was no stick for shifting gears to neutral, reverse or forward (fast or slow). There was instead a series of computer buttons on the dashboard for programming and reprogramming destinations, the latter being for turning at the next lights or into a driveway when the car had not been previously informed digitly to make such a move. George was looking forward to being taken to his destinations as a passenger and not as a driver, having the car turning itself left and right, braking and speeding up, without his active participation.  He was beginning to believe that it might make travelling by car a more relaxing matter for him.

He liked, too, that he did not have to worry about going to a pub, drinking with his co-workers and other friends, and upon driving back home, being arrested by the police for drunk driving. With this car he could drink as many beers and scotches as he wanted without having to consider the law-breaking consequences of doing so. He thought that he might even be able to lie down in the back seat and snooze on the drive going home.

Altogether, the Ford Computermatic seemed to George to be the ideal car for him to own at this point in his life. He could see nothing wrong with it.

Two Months Later George Rethinks His Purchase

What was I thinking? Buying this car seemed the right thing to do at the time. It was kind of a New Year’s resolution for me to move into the future of personal transportation. Pretty much everyone I know was buying one just like it – my friends at my workplace, my family and my always-buy-the-newest-gadget neighbours included. They did something of a sales job on me, I have to admit. Being a salesman myself, I should have seen that.

The absence of a steering wheel seems very difficult for me to get accustomed to. Many times I have reached for what is not there, not even as a kind of decorative piece creating an illusion of human control in the operation of a car. Although I have in essence reinvented myself as a perpetual passenger and never again a driver, it has not been easy for me to deal with the change. 

I used to pride myself in my driving ability, being able to avoid possible accidents, and easily managing to steer past idiots in front of me, and feel as free and fast as the wind when on a country road with no other cars in sight. I had completely forgotten about all that. There was this tremendous sense of control that I used to experience, not a feeling one gets often in the world as it is today, controlled more and more by AI, and not you and I. I am beginning to think of cars like mine being just programmable thieves of a person’s pride and sense of control. There is certainly enough elements of life today, that steal away those important aspects of human life.

One of my first feelings of genuine pride as a teenager involved driving my parents’ car (a Lincoln) on my own, with no one else at the wheel and no one (father, mother or elder brother) telling me what to do and not do. No teenager today would get that feeling of pride if these were the only types of cars left on the road.     

There was a period of time when I was 17 and 18 in which I toyed with the idea of being a race car driver. But there were too many songs, when my parents grew up in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that told sad stories of tragic racing accidents. My parents made me listen over and over to Leader of the Pack, Tell Laura I love her, Last Kiss and Dead Man’s Curve. It worked, successfully discouraging me from taking that career path. I went to college to develop the knowledge to establish a much safer career as a salesman.

Yet, my driving ability was long a source of pride for me, and, now that I think about it, it still was the year before I bought the AI monster I am currently riding in.    

Then there was the matter of speeding. The car was programmed in the factory not to go over the speed limit, unless it was to escape a precarious situation. I did not enjoy losing control of that, especially after the program almost headed us into a collision by not being able to see as dangerous a situation that I knew could very well be.        

And when I see a place to pull over, say a likely restaurant or bar not previously programmed as a destination , I have to act quickly to reprogram the device controlling the car’s movement. I have missed a few suddenly seen places because programming the damn thing took way too long, too many buttons to push. I had the impression that I was asking for permission from a machine. ‘Please Mr. AI can I go where I want to go?’ I feel like I am the child and the Computermatic is an authoritarian parent.

Just the other day I saw an older model of car, a sportscar one in which the human did all the driving. I didn’t see it for very long as it took too much time to program the Computermatic to slow down for a reason other than car safety. Still, I was able to sense somehow the positive relationship between car and its driver long enough to make me miss my past experience with cars.

George Finds a Way to Make a Decision

           George knew that he had to make a decision concerning his new car. This is what he thought up as a test. He was going to make a comparison between new and old. For a day he rented an old style car. Even though it had been two months since he had actually ‘driven’ a car, he had no problems doing so with the rented car. He drove through the main street of town, making several rather sudden stops along the way: pharmacy, grocery store and . Then he drove the car out along the country roads outside of town, stopping to take a few pictures. Finally, he went to his local pub, and had a few drinks with his friends. He noticed that he did not drink as much as he had been doing over the last two months. 

           The next day, he took his own car out for the same set of experiences, including the drive in the country, making no stops and driving slower. At the end of the day he went drinking with friends in a bar, and he fell asleep on the way back home. He woke up with a jolt when he arrived home. At that point, he made a decision. At work the next day, he swapped cars with one of his workmates, one who had encouraged him to make his Computermatic purchase, but could not afford a new car himself. The car George got in exchange was a Lincoln.