Though most people tend to have occasional anxieties over their everyday stressful lives in this modern nonstop world, there are some that experience a deeper and more persistent kind of anxiety, typically referred to as an anxiety disorder. As a frequent conference speaker about autonomous cars, I’ve seen repeatedly a fraction of attendees that appear to be quite anxious or in some instances intensely fearful about the potential arrival of self-driving driverless cars.
For those that seem to be on the verge of this perhaps unusual or new pedigree of a specific disorder that fixates on autonomous vehicles, they often exhibit a pronounced sense of impending doom or danger, they are extremely agitated and animated when asking questions or making statements about the future as they see it, and have reported that they are losing sleep and experiencing other physical and mental manifestations due to their anxiousness.
Let’s give this a name, autonomophobia, if you were, and hope that it doesn’t materialize in any substantive way.
I’m going to put aside herein those with this kind of ailment that ascribe to the belief that the advent of driverless cars is really an overall evil-doer plot to place humans into some kind of AI bondage, which is a notable member in the raft of AI conspiracy theories that seem to be floating around these days.
Those oft-repeated AI conspiracy theories typically involve AI becoming sentient, gaining a kind of human spark and then super-intelligence and decide then of its own newly found free-will to wipe us all out, those pesky and annoying human life forms. I don’t think this has any real chance of happening in our lifetimes and have questioned whether these doomsday scenarios are more plausible than the happy-face versions.
It would seem more practical to concentrate on the indubitably prudent kinds of worrisome concerns. Based on the various questions and comments that I’ve gotten from attendees and readers of my columns; I’ve boiled down the anxiousness concerns into a Top 5 list.
Top Five Angsts Of The Autonomophobia Disorder
I’ll cover the Top 5 angsts, offering insights about what they consist of, and the rationale or irrational basis for each one of them.
Angst #1: Will they take away my driver’s license forever?
Pundits for driverless cars seem to keep saying that it will be best to ban all human driving in order to allow for the presumed safer and more “thoughtful” self-driving autonomous cars. As such, the word is spreading that any humans with a driver’s license will become extinct, no more human driving allowed, all for the betterment of mankind.
This seems over-the-top, at least for the foreseeable future. There are over 250 million conventional cars in the United States alone, and the notion that autonomous cars would come into existence and overnight cause that entire stock of inventory to switchover, well, it’s just not sensible. For many years, likely decades ahead, there will be a mixture of human-driven cars and self-driving cars. It would seem unimaginable that regulators could somehow ban all human driving right away, even if they thought it worthwhile, and the contentious outcry and battle over such a change would be bitter and long-lasting.
Bottom-line, your driver’s license isn’t going away due to autonomous cars, any time soon.
Angst #2: Will I no longer be able to own a car?
According to recent statistics, it appears that Millennials and Gen Z are tending toward being less enamored about car ownership, partially due to being raised into an era of relatively widespread ridesharing. In spite of that apparent trend, there are still many that want to own a car, and even the latest generation that is less excited about owning multiple cars has been aiming toward owning at least one car, rather than giving up entirely on car ownership.
In any case, pundits about autonomous cars tend to assert that driverless cars will be entirely owned by large corporations such as the automakers and presumably the largest ridesharing firms, all grabbing up those self-driving cars as part of a money-making ridesharing fleet. This might be partially the case, but it seems to ignore or fail to realize that there will be lots of individual car owners that will opt to rideshare their driverless cars, and in many cases mini-fleets will emerge by budding entrepreneurs.
At Tesla’s Autonomy Investor Day, Elon Musk touted the notion that individual car owners would be able to list their cars onto a Tesla ridesharing network, allowing for the use of their (someday) Full Self-Driving (FSD) car to make money for them. Imagine that you use your driverless car to take you to work, and the rest of the workday it is making money for you, likewise doing so after it has dropped you home for bedtime.
Bottom-line: Yes, there will still be individual car ownership in a world of driverless cars.
Angst #3: What am I to do while inside a driverless car?
For some, the mysterious nature of a car that can seemingly drive itself is also wrapped into the enigma of what the car will be like on the inside. This induces some to assume that they might be trapped inside the driverless car, a prisoner of a soulless machine that is going to take them someplace, wherever the automation decides. The human becomes impotent and no longer in control.
Well, that’s certainly not what is on-the-docket for autonomous cars right now. Automakers are designing an interior that will allow the human passengers to swivel around and enjoy the company of other humans riding in the self-driving car or be able to gently sleep while being whisked to the office. I’m not saying that one couldn’t devise a more ominous interior, only that it seems unlikely that such an approach will be undertaken and nor tolerated.
Bottom-line: Being inside a driverless car should be a pleasant ridesharing-like experience (that’s the hope).
Angst #4: Might I get hit by a driverless car?
I’ve stated many times that the notion of zero fatalities and zero injuries due to the advent of self-driving cars is not achievable, and at best it is a lofty goal, though a tainted goal that is misleading and setting expectations beyond reach. So, yes, you can get hit by a driverless car.
As a pedestrian, if you opt to leap in front of an autonomous car that is coming down the street, presumably doing the legal speed limit, yet you suddenly appear without sufficient indication, the physics of the car, even a vaunted self-driving car, will be such that you are going to get hit. Sorry, there is no magical flying carpet or invisible shield that’s going to overt this (well, at least none that we know of today).
Also, in the mix of human-driven cars and driverless cars, there are bound to be fender benders, rear-end run-ins and all kinds of car accidents or incidents. You also need to include in your calculus the chances of an AI system error or a hardware failure or fault that can get the autonomous car into untoward traffic troubles, possibly leading to human injuries or deaths.
Bottom-line: Self-driving cars will account for some amount of human injuries and deaths, though the intention is that it will be less than the amount sustained in today’s human driving world.
Angst #5: Will I lose my job as a result of driverless cars?
I do not wish to be the bearer of bad news, but if your livelihood is based on driving a car, meaning you get paid because you are a human driver, your days are numbered in that profession, though as mentioned it will be quite a while before we see a widespread advent of autonomous cars, thus, you have time to get ready for changing your career direction and can likely continue your work for the foreseeable future.
The odds are that a lot of people are not going to trust a driverless car, at first, and for a while, and those passengers will be seeking a human driver rather than using an autonomous car. Another factor will be where driverless cars are geographically most likely to be first put into play, primarily high population centers, otherwise the ridesharing cost-benefit probably won’t be a solid ROI.
Bottom-line: For now, you’ll likely be able to continue being a paid driver of a car, though this will become gradually lessened and hopefully over time you’ll be able to reskill to some other paying task.
Conclusion
Notice that each of the Top 5 angsts has a kernel of truth to it, though at a deeper analysis they are not quite as bad as much of the media tends to portray them. For those with the emerging autonomophobia, the media that overplays the hand of autonomous cars transforming our society almost overnight are adding more fuel to their anxiety fire, unfortunately, and I trust that my comments might let them catch a night’s sleep, at least for a while.
