Greetings, Future Tensers,
Though we cover numerous emerging technologies, few seem more likely to rapidly transform the way we live than self-driving cars—the subject of this month’s Futurography course. As always, we’re starting out with a conversational introduction to the topic. There’s also a cheat sheet that will fill you in on key players in, major debates about, and further readings on autonomous vehicles. Are we ceding our autonomy and risking mass employment as we embrace them?
We’ll be discussing those and other questions in the days and weeks ahead, but for now you can check out the last installments in our previous Futurography unit, which looked at the purported creepiness of drones. Lee Konstantinou offered a revealing exploration of “Fartcopter,” an Adult Swim mock infomercial that helps us unpack the uncanny qualities of drones. And Stephen E. Henderson discussed some of the legal ambiguities that drones produce, most of all where the Fourth Amendment is concerned. Once you’ve read those pieces, try your hand at our end-of-the-month quiz and tell us how you feel about drones on this survey.
Here are some of the other stories we read while marveling at the continued existence of Myspace:
- Design: The retro styling of the iPhone SE “won’t turn heads … it might actually be kind of cool,” writes Henry Grabar.
- Comics: The comic book series UnFollow is a compelling thriller that also has some surprisingly smart things to say about social media.
- Live video: Facebook has been pushing streaming content, but most videos on the site are terrible. Slate TV critic Willa Paskin has a theory of what makes them succeed and fail.
- Instant messaging: Lily Hay Newman argues that Gchat was one of Google’s best products, but the company never realized what it had.
Events:
- Curious why artificially intelligent digital assistants are so hot right now? Join Future Tense for a happy hour conversation in Washington, D.C., at 6 p.m. on June 8 to discuss the technology behind our new helpers and their implications for society. Slate senior technology writer Will Oremus, who recently wrote a feature on A.I. assistants, will be in discussion with Brigid Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab and the Good Life Initiative at New America, and the Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.
- On Thursday, June 9 at 6:30 p.m. in Washington, D.C., Surgeon General Vivek Murthy will host a Future Tense screening and discussion of E.T. as part of our “My Favorite Movie” series. For more information and to RSVP, click here.
Lifting my hands off the wheel,
Jacob Brogan
for Future Tense
