Fully automated cars that are capable of sharing the road and communicating with one another in sophisticated ways can solve many if not all of our automotive problems. Things like car accidents caused by inattention and unforeseen calamities such as tire blowouts are all better addressed if we relinquish control to technology.
Here's the thing, though. I don't think it's going to happen any time soon. Yes, some degree of automation seems inevitable, but true automation (like you see in the movies) will not happen in the near future, and here's why: The natural, logical goal of automation is traffic control, and achieving that is only possible by attaining a degree of take-one-for-the-team equality that our hard-coding as human beings won't accept without a fight.
A Little Automation is Okay, Says Human Nature
There are many things about the driving experience that can be improved upon with partial automation. Most people readily accept the fact that the guy in the car next to them is prone to distraction, incapable of split-second decision making, and is likely to err in unpredictable ways. Further, I'd wager that most people can acknowledge their own shortcomings behind the wheel as well. Consequently, I truly believe that most people welcome some degree of partial automation that can, for instance, sense the other guy's mistakes and react to them faster than a human can by making a split-second steering course correction.
By way of example, my wife and I are currently shopping for an SUV, and though she is a very careful driver, she is more interested in features such as Acura's lane departure warning and various forms of the "whoops, you forgot to drive so let me do it for you for a second" technology than she is interested in fuel efficiency, horsepower, or any of the "normal" features that car buyers have long considered as important criteria. Surely her viewpoint is becoming more commonplace.
So while most people probably are comfortable with some degree of "robot take the wheel" technology throwing them a bone every now and then, I contend that such partial automation will only take us so far, and that the destiny of automation is car-to-car communication which enables the best overall traffic flow. That's where the problems start. The only way the robots can pull it off is by collectively slowing everyone down and allowing for a hive mentality to persist. Why do they have to slow all the cars down? Can't all cars just go super fast if robots can avoid trouble? Not in any city or suburb. There are just too many vehicles and not enough road. Period.
And when you consider that we can't even find the political will to raise the gas tax enough to fix the thousands of bridges and dams that are about to shed their mortal coil, I don't think there's even a remote possibility that having robotic cars will suddenly mean that new roads will start popping up all over the place. And with too many cars and not enough roads, the robots' contribution will, again, be that they manage the logistics of slowly and carefully squeezing us all onto the same roads we currently ham-fistedly and dangerously squeeze ourselves onto.
It's hard to find a better model for harmonious traffic control than ant colonies, so the robot cars will emulate that behavior. But that's just it, we're not ants. So whether you think humans are sophisticated apes or God's chosen species endowed with supremacy over the planet, the one thing we definitely are is self interested.
A Lot of Automation is Counter to Human Nature
Don't get me wrong. Humans are capable of great sacrifice. Soldiers die for their country, firemen risk their lives to save perfect strangers, and, in Man of Steel, Kevin Costner got sucked up by a tornado just to keep young Superman's identity a secret that much longer. But these are all noble endeavors; things worth dying for. In matters of the mundane, self interest reigns supreme.
Many of us will take a bullet to save an innocent child, but how many people can be bothered to exert the slightest bit of effort to not urinate on the floor of a public restroom? Spoiler alert, it's not many. Again, humans can make great sacrifices, but in ordinary matters, we kind of stink at not being jerks.
While there are no shortage of people who have claimed to be real-deal socialists or even just charitable to a such an extent that they would be willing to play second fiddle to the interests of society as a whole, the reality is that human nature kicks in at some point and that all goes out the window. We have thousands of years of civilization to clearly illustrate as much. As some sacrifice, others will want more than their share, and they'll take from the ones who were willing to sacrifice. Then the ones who were willing to sacrifice begin questioning why they were willing to do so, and the whole thing falls apart. Lather, rinse, repeat, since the beginning of society. If the only thing motivating someone to embrace a paradigm shift is knowing that they're contributing to the public welfare, the whole thing becomes a urine covered airport bathroom in short order (I'm looking at you, Soviet Russia).
The takeaway? We're comfortable with obtaining collective greatness by increasing everyone's capabilities (which is really what all the partial automation does), but we're not willing to attain some noble goal through collective mediocrity. In specific instances, we're all capable of charity, and American history has shown us that, on a long enough timeline, everyone can learn to see everyone else as equal by way of (eventually) allowing them to ascend to equal status. But there is no evidence to suggest that humans are capable of becoming equals by reducing one's own stock to accomplish said equality, and that's exactly where automated cars will have to go to realize their full utility.
A Fellow Car Enthusiast Got Me Thinking
I'm a gear head. I spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet chatting with people about cars and discussing racing and other four-wheeled endeavors. Naturally, car enthusiasts aren't exactly thrilled about the idea of their favorite hobby being taken away by robots. On one of my favorite discussion boards, this topic came up, and a fellow car enthusiast said:
Traffic is mostly caused by those people not paying attention, different reaction times, different reactions to obstacles in their environments, different merging speeds, and much much more. For example, with all the texting people do now, I see a lot of people looking down and tapping their brakes frequently and unnecessarily. This causes others behind to start slowing down in reaction and it causes a chain reaction as drivers behind start braking earlier and earlier to form a safety buffer.
I think all the issues he described can be summed up as "errors caused by flaws in human decision making." That is certainly where the vast majority of traffic comes from. As I intimated earlier, scientists have spent a lot of time studying ant colonies to learn how they interact with one another in such complex ways (such as when they form their long ant highways to transport food back to the colony) without causing traffic. It's a complex interaction, no doubt, but the whole thing works because it's a team effort. Ants all collectively slow down and are infinitely "courteous" to one another, which makes the colony as a whole move faster and without incident.
Automated cars will take the same approach as ants to solve our traffic woes. The problem is that for cars to be of any significant utility, they have to greatly multiply our speed capabilities (as humans), and that adds a new dimension of complexity that ants don't have to account for. So as we emulate the ants, we get driving characteristics that stink.
My internet comrade then goes on to say:
...I personally look forward to automated driving (for traffic alleviation purposes), but on the other hand, going back to the concept of it not really helping unless 100% of cars are automated, I don't really care for it because I wouldn't want to be a slave, not being able to drive my car however I want.
There you have it. And in case human nature isn't enough to throw a wrench in the works of the automation discussion, let's not forget that this is America where we value individualism and eschew intervention into our daily lives even more than the rest of the world does.
We Haven't Even Talked About Money Yet
Just in case by some miracle everyone in America joined hands in a song of peace and harmony, wholly welcoming our new robotic traffic conductors, all it takes is for one person to have the financial resources to make their car the one car that can take a faster path to the finish line and suddenly the house of cards begins to fall. Further, if the debate over net neutrality tells you anything, some company out there will think of a way to monetize getting the wealthy to work sooner. Probably the very same company that sells everyone else on the virtue of getting to work slower / safer.
"Sure," their marketing materials will read, "Everyone else really needs to go slower in order for traffic to be better and driving to be safer. But you're special. Shouldn't you get to work sooner? For only one day's wages of $11 trillion dollars (author assumes rampant inflation in the future world where automated cars are the norm), you can equip your boring appliance car with our patented #gofasterbutton (author also assumes all sentences in the future will include at least one hashtag)." This, of course, is inevitable barring some legislation that makes it illegal. But surely we can all see how such government meddling will only create an even more profitable black market for #gofasterbuttons. Just look at what the War on Drugs has done for cartels.
The point is, partially automated cars can certainly make incremental improvements upon the driving experience in ways that won't encroach on our hard-coded feelings about existence. For instance, a robot car reacting and swerving to avoid an accident that I could not have reacted to quickly enough will be viewed as a welcomed addition to the driving experience by most. But in order to really obtain the type of traffic harmony that fully automated cars promise, we have to all voluntarily treat ourselves as equals and just I don't see that happening.