Part 14 - The cusp of change

Something a little different this time, mainly because the thought occurred to me that autonomous vehicles are just part of a whole raft of technology that is affecting the way we live.
So then I started to think about the long term affects that technological change will have on society.

I am no psychiatrist, sociologist or anyone else remotely qualified to comment on the actual effects but I over the years I have observed a trend.

People appear to becoming more socially isolated as technology gains ground in our everyday life.

Back in my younger days when dinosaurs ruled the earth the family would sit around the radio, and later the TV and watch or listen as a family.

For a real treat, occasionally you got to go to the movies and sit with a crowd to watch it together.

With the advent of affordable home computing, every kid has a mission control in their bedroom with a computer, tablet, mobile phone all working together over the internet.

Instead of sitting as a family, each member watches what they want on TV or streaming services or play games online, or frequently, both at the same time.

Even in the early days of computer games, my kids used to have LAN sessions where all their mates would come around, set up a local network and hook all their machines together, order pizza and away they go. Today it's all in the cloud so there is no direct personal interaction.

Many people go to work on public transport. With autonomous vehicles happening, the advent of a vehicle as a service is being mooted and may even become the new public transport of the future with trains and buses becoming obsolete. There you have people sitting, working or playing within the vehicle with no direct personal interaction. Is personal isolation the way of the future and social interaction done through virtual reality?

Another observation. You used to sit at your office desk and talk about things. Now it's all email or chat software. You can work all day and say nothing aloud to another person but have many virtual conversations.

 Ok, so what has technology ever done for me?

Today its everywhere. Tonight I watched Britain's got talent the day after it's shown in the UK. One of the acts used computers to drive drones as part of the act and I watched it on the other side of the world several hours after it aired live.

People are printing prosthetic limbs on home computers for a fraction of the cost of commercial units.

One of my colleagues told me in the stairwell as I was leaving work today about a 3d printed electric bike. called light rider. Apologies to KIT (Knight Rider for those of you too young to know) for the pun. Even though it looks like something out of farscape, it is impressive as possibly the worlds first 3D printed motor cycle.

Computer controlled routers abound, I have one in my shed complete with computer keyboard, mouse and LCD screen and CAD CAM software.

What home doesn't have an LCD screen with a set top box and streaming services?

Foxconn, which is a major supplier of devices for Apple and other major suppliers has replaced 60,000 jobs with robots.  A good choice for a manufacturer to reduce costs and increase productivity, but what is the long term cost to society?

Workers are also consumers. If workers are replaced by machines on a large scale then who is left to buy the products produced?

Some argue that they don't lose their jobs but just increase productivity, the world economic forum has an interesting paper here on the possible effects of automation

So when you are sitting in your autonomous car what will you be doing?

Going too or from work could be used to catch up on work, reading, studying etc but on weekends it could be another story.

With cars currently being only semi-autonomous, engaging in sex in a moving car brings more than the normal amount of risk to the act.

Latest news on the autonomous front: insurance companies are predicting a drop in the cost of insurance once this tech hits the road in serious numbers, with Bloomberg predicting insurance costs could drop 60% in 15 years, giving fears to the survival of the industry.

To compound their woes, vehicle manufacturers, confident in their products ability to avoid collision may choose to wear their own insurance costs, putting yet more pressure on the insurance industry.

Add to that the probability of less cars on the road due to a car as a service scenario and things start to look very bleak.

On that note, a new start up called Zoot, out of Silicon Valley, is attempting to raise $US252 Million to start an autonomous Uber type service.  It also has a license to operate autonomous vehicles on the road in California. Uber, Lyft and others are heading down the same path and have inked deals with major vehicle manufacturers to provide these services.

Tesla, a name fast becoming synonymous with driver less technology, may be far closer to a fully automated vehicle than many people think, possibly next year if this article from MIT Technology Review has the facts right.

Tesla is fast becoming a leader as it is logging truly massive amounts of data as all their vehicles constantly send data back to Tesla. What that means in the real world, is that Tesla is getting the real world data equivalent of Googles total testing data, and this is hard to believe, every 10 hours.....

They have a massive, world wide test bed, on the road everyday,sending reams of data back to improve their systems based on real world data.

So the question is can we become socially isolated when we are connected like never before?

Time will tell.