 Fantasy: June 07, 2017 Issue [#8321] |
  Fantasy
This week: Driverless Edited by: Robert Waltz  
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Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of Western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process.
-Kenneth Clark
Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and of all achievement.
-Claude M. Bristol
If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the milkman.
-Me |
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This edition of the Fantasy newsletter is mostly about science fiction, so any pure fantasy fans can go ahead and skip to the Editor's Picks if you like. Or keep reading if you want; just don't say you weren't warned.
It came to my attention recently that we're fast approaching the 200th anniversary of the birth of science fiction: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was first published in 1818. Now, some might disagree with me that this work was the origin of science fiction, and that's fine, but I'm not going to go into all the reasons why I'm right, here. Just one: it was the first story that took as inspiration actual scientific developments of the time period and speculated on their possible ramifications to humanity.
Of course, it's been 200 years, and as far as we know, no one has actually managed to reanimate the dead (insert joke about your least favorite politician or movie actor here if you want). This is irrelevant; what matters is the speculation itself, not the accuracy of prediction. In fact, given the wide range of pessimistic and post-apocalyptic scenarios in science fiction, you might say that the true measure of a science fiction writer's success is about the work's extrapolation not coming to fruition.
Since the publication of Shelley's work, many other visionaries have looked into the future and written about what they've seen. Most of these scenarios haven't come to pass; those that have, have done so in ways the writer could never have foreseen. As an example, today's smartphones: no one really predicted their current form or all the ways in which they've changed our society. I remember as a kid reading about the possibility of "videophones," which most SF authors envisioned as a telephone with video capability. Those were, in fact, developed, but they never caught on; however, we have the same functionality now in our smartphones, which use a completely different technology than the old-style landlines.
The biggest (plausible) invention projected in the near future is the driverless car. (I'm not going to get into the implausible ones, like the Singularity.) I don't recall any SF writers predicting exactly what we're probably looking at: in effect, AI in cars without any major changes to existing roads or highways. They're coming, and probably even within my lifetime. Now, I look forward to this invention with positive anticipation; it will be nice to be able to walk out of a bar and not have to worry about driving under the influence.
But apart from my own convenience, I'm not certain that autonomous vehicles are a net positive for society. Over the past half-century or more, we've seen more and more jobs lost, not to immigrants or bad politics, but to robots who can do things faster, more efficiently, and (most importantly for our capitalist economic system), more cheaply. Robots do the grunt work of building the cars we have now. They automate shipping and delivery. We are already living in a science fiction future, and we continue to push down that path. Now we're looking at the loss of jobs for delivery drivers, truckers, cabbies, and even the already-exploited Uber contractors.
But that's only the beginning of the effect on society. What about police forces that rely on income from traffic fines and/or parking tickets? With driverless technologies, there will be no more speeding tickets, no more parking fines. (My prediction: Over the next few years, you're going to see a lot of opposition to autonomous vehicles from police and municipalities. This opposition will be framed in terms of "safety," but don't be fooled; it'll be about revenue.)
In terms of safety, we know that no system is perfect. Right now, in the US alone, the automobile fatality rate is roughly one per 10,000 people, or about 32,000 automobile-related deaths per year. (Based on this source ). I think it's reasonable to assume that most people would like to see that number diminish (it is, in fact, a lower rate than it used to be, if you look at that source). But when you think about human nature, well, consider this: the air travel fatality rate is much, much lower: about 3 per million flights worldwide (source ). And yet, in stubborn apathy or ignorance about statistics, many people are more afraid of flying than of driving. Why? Probably because with flying, you're putting your fate in the hands of someone else, usually a pilot that you don't know, and all of the automatic systems that exist on an aircraft and in air traffic control.
Given that bit about human nature, I think a lot of us are going to oppose the idea of autonomous vehicles, even if their safety is demonstrably better than the system we have now. So consider this: How much of a reduction in the fatality rate (or use a different measure, such as injury rate or injuries per miles traveled, all of which is available at that first link above) will need to happen for you to embrace driverless cars? For some people, I expect they won't like it even if the rate drops to 0 - because as with an aircraft, you're putting yourself in someone else's hands. Me, I figure as long as it's equal to or less than current figures, it's a win. Because as I said, I look forward to being able to drink and not drive.
There are other issues to consider, as well, too many to go into here. Point is, this is one thing that science fiction is about: considering all of the ramifications of a technology, whether plausible or not. We can never see everything, but it's always a good thing to try. |
Pure fantasy fans, if you skipped the above editorial, welcome back! Here's some fantasy from around the site:
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