Into the future

Not with you. With cars. Lol

I didn’t think I would write today for the fact that I wasn’t inspired or motivated to write anything. Somehow though, the motivation part sorted itself when I realized today would make 7 days since I’ve been consistently writing again. Huge milestone for me. When I saw the self-driving cars prompt, inspiration also landed because I love sci-fi type tech. In fact, I just finished watching Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

Like it or not, self-driving cars will be one of the next huge things all over the world. They’re already in many developed countries, and will soon reach Africa when we can afford them as much as people in those countries can. Like every new piece of tech that comes out though, there’ll probably be some sort of lag time before their use become widespread. Before they arrive, let’s talk about them.

I’m definitely buying one

I know that the reservations and skepticism surrounding many people’s decisions to want to own self-driving cars are that they’re not safe. But really, are even manual cars safe?

On the issue of safety, you’re probably scared that their systems can crash or be over-ridden by hackers. Your concerns there are legit, but and I’m sure that cyber safety is one of the heaviest selling points for these self-driven cars, so it’ll be one of the ways the companies that make these cars will segregate their prices: cars will be priced based on which ones are the most secure from hacks and breakdowns from bugs. Self-driving cars will become one of the biggest pushes for the thriving of the cybersecurity market.

At least the car can’t get drunk or sleep on the job. I don’t have the data, but I’m sure the number of people who die yearly from accidents resulting from driving under influence(DUI) and napping drivers would be a terrifying number. With self-driven cars, we’ll have less to worry about cases like this.

At this time, a self-driven car will not last 2 days if it landed in Tamale. Even Bolt and Uber are barely here right now for good reasons. Communities trying to control speeding in their area put highly raised speed bumps through out the area which will scratch my precious too much.

Verdicts on accidents

Just the emergence of ChatGPT threw our educational systems into chaos over it’s use and content ownership. Even now, universities are still debating on whether to normalize students using them. I think their use should be normalized, because the thing with technology is that it’ll catch up with you whether you accept it or feign ignorance.

Similarly, our judiciary systems will clearly have to be restructured the further into the future we go, because machines will keep gaining autonomy to perform human actions more and more. For instance, until we we have our first self-driven car accident court in Africa, it’ll probably be very complicated complicated on dealings with of cases like that. Should the machine be the o e held responsible? Are we holding the owner who purchased it and “let it out and loose” to deal with the consequence of his/her (GESI training. Lol) car’s actions? Or are we suing the manufacturing companies?

I’m not sure yet who I think should be held responsible, but I certainly will say that these cases should be dealt on a case by case basis. If for instance, the accident is a result of a bug, then maybe the car company can be held responsible. If it is a result of the owner of the car tweaking some settings to make the car careless, we’ll simply handover car over to the law. I don’t think there can be a case where we hold the machine responsible, because you can only hold people liable for stuff. What are you going to do the car, put it on garage arrest for the rest of its life? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Like all innovations in tech, self-driven cars have their good and bad sides, and people who will choose to use them will certainly have to understand both sides, and be comfortable with them. The good thing is it’ll take a long time to become widespread, so by that time, bugs and vulnerabilities in it’s implementation would’ve been researched, tested and improved for even heavily dense cities to use them without concerns for safety.

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All images are mine

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