Greetings, Future Tensers,
As we’ve already seen throughout this month’s Futurography course on autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars are well on their way. Still, many automobile and energy analysts argue that traditional, gas-guzzling vehicles aren’t going anywhere fast. But as Levi Tillemann and Colin McCormick argue, those analysts aren’t looking at all the data when they evaluate consumer choices. In the near future, Tillemann and McCormick propose, companies like Uber and Lyft will drive growth in the sector, and electric, self-driving cars serve their interests best. It’s a surprisingly practical premise, one that makes other, seemingly quixotic efforts such as Larry Page’s reported $100 million investment in a flying “car” startup seem a little more reasonable.
As Adam Thierer writes in another Futurography article, this also means we’re looking toward an automotive future that “is more likely to be an amalgam of Tesla, Uber, and Zipcar: a fleet of robot cars that are just sitting out there waiting for us to hail them for a ride.” One of the primary arguments in favor of that eventuality holds that it will reduce car crashes, saving a lot of lives. But those super-safe cars may still subject manufacturers to legal troubles. To avoid a resulting chilling effect that could stultify innovation, Thierer suggests limiting their liability, while still finding ways to compensate victims of any accidents that do occur.
Here are some of the other stories we read while preparing to delete Apple’s bloatware from our phones:
- Sexism: Mattel’s Barbie has featured some deeply retrograde depictions of women in the STEM fields, but information science assistant professor Casey Fiesler argues that the new Game Developer Barbie is refreshingly progressive.
- Conservation: In a beautifully written story, Lisa Margonelli describes her community’s relationship with the alewife, a peculiar bait fish that, when smoked, has “the salty slick of bait garnished with a dab of road tar, liquid smoke, and a frill of tiny bones.”
- Net neutrality: A telecom company is promising to automatically block ads on mobile devices in the United Kingdom. Dan Gillmor warns that that could be deadly for the free and open internet.
- Artificial intelligence: An algorithm scripted a short film, which is cool, but it would have been totally incoherent were it not for the cinematic craft that humans brought to the table.
- Customer service: Comcast wants to fix its notoriously terrible reputation, but can it actually treat its customers like human beings?
Jacob Brogan
for Future Tense
