I’m really not a technophobe. I hate most of it, granted, won’t use Facebook, never had a twitter, resist downloading apps until I’m physically forced to at gunpoint and generally view ‘change’ as a bad thing. Not ‘changes’; that was a great song by Bowie… ahhhhhhh. But change; bad thing.

So why do I need a car that drives itself? And can I still ask that question whilst really appreciating the incredible significance of what such a creation represents?

Because a car that drives itself is really the pinnacle of artificial intelligence. Not like my own version in which I pretend to know lots of shit about everything but really learned most of it from a Cornflakes packet or Wikipedia. No, proper AI.

They have ‘robots’. Mainly in China and Japan. They’re obsessed with them. And they sweep the floor and walk up stairs, which is all well and good but its not exactly R2D2, is it? High tech, lots of programmed responses, its not AI. That starts when independent interaction takes place and the ability to respond independently to changing environments. Learning as it goes along. The wonderful gap between an ipad and the Terminator scenario when the computers take over the whole world and blow it up. AI is the ‘happy medium’. Computers that can act independently but don’t control weapons or have ideas above themselves.

Tesla have made a car that drives itself. Better than Google’s. Better than everyone’s. Because that what Elon Musk does. He invents amazing things that work not just better than everyone else’s but are 20 years ahead of what anyone else has even thought of.

You ‘summon’ the car with a remote. And it comes out of the garage and finds you. Bit of a problem if you don’t have an electric door on the garage, but these are technical details. You will, in time, be able to summon the car across great distances. Like from New York to San Francisco. The car will leave, charge itself up along the way at various points and arrive in California with no speeding tickets, no hitch-hikers, just the car. Maybe wash itself, I don’t know.

Ok, it might be easier, certainly quicker, to just, rent a car. But this is about potential.

Apparently on you-tube there are loads of videos of the test drives of this new car. And they’re funny. Changing lanes for no reason. Bit of a swerve here and there, probably because the guy in the next car was getting an email and it upset the Tesla’s electronic wizardry. I’m not saying the car’s perfect. Apparently its ‘not very good with small obstructions’. I need more information about that, lots more information. Like, what is a ‘small obstruction’? A cat? A lamppost?? A child???

But its early days.

One last question. What do I do whilst the car is driving itself? What is my purpose in life? Why am I here if I’m no longer needed? Would I sit in the back and pretend I have an invisible chauffeur? Or let the car drive but sit there panicking in the driver’s seat in case something goes wrong?

Is having a car that drives itself like having a dog that shits for itself? Deep philosophical questions.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx