Is the impact of new vehicle technology on our lives positive or scary?
We live in an unprecedented age where the seemingly endless explosion of technology makes it increasingly difficult to keep up with it in our everyday lives.
It is very likely that children born in recent years will discover that their future careers have not even been thought about, such is the pace of technological innovation.
See how motor vehicles have been transformed over the last decade with the implementation of new ‘gadgets’ to make our journeys much easier and safer. Manufacturers are struggling to bring vehicles to market with pioneering technology that will set them apart from their opponents. However, are these new inclusions really beneficial to the driver or do they remove the human element from the decision-making process? The answer is open to debate, as everyone will have an opinion or argument to counter the opposite point of view with the same amount of validity.
The purpose of this article is not to formulate a definite opinion one way or another, but is intended to provoke you, the reader, to ponder whether these new technological innovations are helping you as a driver or whether you are happy to allow computers to produce more and more. more of your decisions. Does this new era of computerization have “Big Brother” connotations similar to the novel ‘1984’ written by George Orwell in 1949?
Safety progression
It would be difficult to argue against the value of the security improvements that have been made through technology. Safety was not a priority for motor vehicle manufacturers in the first half of the 20th century. As the century progressed, so did the power and speed of vehicles, which coincided with a growing number of deaths. The first manufacturer to introduce a basic safety feature was Buick, who in 1937 added the first turn signal indicators. Seat belts were first tested in the late 1940s, but did not become common in front seats until the 1960s. However, mandatory seat belt laws were not legislated in the United States. Until 1984. Front airbags continued and were made mandatory in 1989. These 2 safety features alone are estimated to have saved more than 300,000 lives in the United States since their introduction.
As the decades progressed, crash tests improved the resistance of cars along with side impact airbags. There are too many features to list that manufacturers have included in the latest motor vehicles … voice-active technology, crash warning sensors … the list spirals down the pages.
The impact of these improvements can be easily translated from the available federal data. The annual number of deaths associated with motor vehicles peaked in the 1970s at more than 50,000 per year. Since then, it has continued to decline every decade as motor vehicle safety improved. If you look at federal data released in December 2014, you will find that auto accident fatalities have dropped by 25% over the past decade, which is a staggering statistic. (For more detailed information, you can consult the National Center for Statistics and Analysis)
Technology implementation
Technology-inspired safety enhancements aside, we now look at aspects that potentially decrease or enhance driver skills.
Power Steering – Most younger drivers will never have experienced driving a car without power steering. Although trying to spin the big cars of the 60s and 70s required quite a bit of strength and determination, it certainly gave you a good idea of the size of the car you were driving. The biggest improvement the power steering assisted with was when it was asked to reverse park. Personally, I have to give this feature strong approval.
Power Side Mirrors: Initially, the mirrors were fixed in position and many vehicles were not equipped with close side mirrors. Once these mirrors became standard, skilled drivers were able to adjust their mirrors so they could expose the natural blind spot and change lanes safely. However, to this day I am in awe of how many drivers fail to configure this mirror to expose the natural blind spot.
Automatic Transmission – Nothing really makes you feel more like one with a car than using a clutch and gear stick. There is a large part of the driver population that has not been trained to drive a manual vehicle. However, the automatic transmission has taken one of the thought processes out of driving, making it much easier for many people to learn to drive. I consider the automatic transmission to be almost a mandatory requirement for those who have to endure congested traffic every day while driving to work.
Front-wheel drive and all-wheel drive vehicles – This has definitely diminished the skills of drivers who formally had to deal with the natural habits of rear-wheel drive vehicles. I must admit that I own a front and rear wheel drive vehicle and find that the real pleasure is driving an older rear wheel drive vehicle (1988 BMW E30).
GPS Maps – Initially there were individual devices that were plugged into the vehicle’s power outlet. However, most manufacturers now make a built-in multifunction display that includes road maps to the required destination. This device has taken the dangerous practice of trying to read a street directory while exiting the game, thankfully.
Steering Wheel Controls – From adjusting the volume on the radio, manipulating the air conditioning, to making a phone call, the driver can use the steering wheel controls in most cases to make these adjustments. Even with the blue tooth available in most vehicles, many drivers still opt for the dangerous practice of holding up their cell phones to converse while driving.
Driverless Cars: With Google’s driverless car logging over 1,000,000 miles and other manufacturers testing the technology with the promise of releasing it to the public by 2020, there are some significant ethical issues associated with its introduction. The main problem that comes to mind is that since the vehicle is being controlled and directed via artificial intelligence, what happens in a crash situation where a moral decision must be made? As an example, let’s hypothesize that a driverless vehicle is facing another vehicle and a crash is imminent. To avoid the collision, the only option is to swerve to the right, however there are a dozen school children in this escape pass. How do the on-board computers evaluate the situation to make a moral decision? I’m sure this is being reviewed as I write, but it certainly seems to pose quite a difficult dilemma for the developers of this artificial intelligence. Another issue to consider is whatever decision the computer decides to make, who will be responsible for the actions it took if there is significant damage, injury, or loss of life?
Morality of artificial intelligence
In our current driving situation, our brain is absorbing vast amounts of information from the surrounding environment and evaluating this data to make decisions in a fraction of a second. Would you be comfortable traveling in a motor vehicle with a computer making all the decisions that could affect your life? In all likelihood, this will be the case for all of us for the next decade.
Legislation problems
I just hope that legislators can solve the liability issues they raise, but the biggest problem I feel is the dilemmas computer developers face when trying to implement morality in the logic of a computer.