In movies and television shows depicting the future, there are flying cars and cars that drive themselves — and sometimes a combination of the two. In the movie Total Recall, for example, there are taxi services that are entirely driven by robots. The promise of the future is that people will no longer have to drive if they don’t wish to do so, and that driving can be a more passive activity to be watched as though it were a form of entertainment of its own.

Google has managed to bring us the future in the form of a car that can drive itself and showed to what extent it could do so by taking a legally blind man to Taco Bell. While that would not have been my first choice as far as cuisine goes, it just goes to show some of the many possibilities that will be made possible by cars that do not require a human driver.

One idea that came to mind is a sort of taxiing service for people who have only recently acquired a job and have no choice other than to take a chain of public transportation that takes numerous hours each way — it would save the sanity of the person in question. It would also make it that much easier for people to find work — knowing that they have options when it comes to getting places.

More importantly, we now have a perfectly viable solution for the problem of what to do when a person falls under circumstances that prevent them from driving for different reasons. For example, when a person commits certain traffic violation, their license is revoked for a period of time — but how is that person meant to get around while they do not have have a license? A fitting punishment would be to put them in a robotically driven car that has a sign on it that explains the crime committed and that it is the reason the person is being driven by a robotic car.

Of course, the best thing would be if the robotic cars were only used for more optimistic purposes like the helping of the blind but realistically it would be better to serve the many needs that could be served by a car that drives itself.

26 Comments

  1. I’m crazy about this idea, Gordon! It is the greatest way of the future. Our cars become private offices on the way to the office and we’re all safer for the effort.

    1. I’m most excited about the idea of getting bad drivers off the steering wheel and into cars that drive themselves. Maybe they will make driving tests harder and if you fail you can get a driver-less car recommended to you.

      1. Love those thoughts, Gordon! Perhaps we’ll chain together all these automaton cars like a train — creating a whole new definition of “private suite” public transportation! SMILE!

        1. Good thought, but it’s way too 20th century. Now the computers would all communicate with one another to stay “linked” despite being physically apart. 🙂

    2. Do you remember the old joke that is about bill gates questioning why the auto industry didn’t catch up as quickly as the computer industry?

          3. Three engineers were riding in a car: a mechanical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft software engineer. The car stalled, and they rolled it to the side of the road.

            The mechanical engineer popped the hood, looked in and said “Look. The drive belt is loose. All we have to do is tighten it up and the car will work just fine.”

            The chemical engineer replied “No, that’s all wrong. The problem is fuel contamination. We have to drain the fuel, filter it, and then everything will be A-OK.”

            The Microsoft software engineer told the other two “No, I’ve seen this problem before. We have to get back in the car, close all the windows, shut down the car, get out, get back in, start up the car, open all the windows, and then it will run.”

        1. I find this blog entertaining, yet useful. Glad to be here. Thanks.

          2. http://bolesblogs.com/
            These? I think so….. maybe. I was checking out a couple here and there. I think I’ll be following 3-4. You have a wide range of topics and interests. Apparently I’m narrow minded. 🙂 I can only intelligently contribute to a few.

  4. So, since I’m ‘here to stay’ I may as well have a name, huh? Meet Shoshanna44 on future posts.

    1. Lillian,

      The comments policy is that you should use a real first name and last name — is Lillian not your name? A quick Googling suggests that it very well may be!

      Thanks!

        2. It seems that I did not fully understand the meaning behind our comment policy — sorry for giving you a hard time. We love having you around and welcome your comments.

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