Rage Against the Machine: Skepticism & Resistance Through Time
Twenty years after the Wright Brothers invented the airplane in 1908, flying was deemed to have little commercial potential. It was seen as something for the daredevils and their almost-suicidal stunts. People associated flying with the deadly pirouettes done under bridges or straight down vertical drops. It was inconceivable to think that this ‘extreme sport’ would ever be adopted by the general population.
Aside from the non-licensed pilots, airplane manufacturing and performance were far from being officially inspected. Accidents due to faulty systems were not rare. And as a result, authorities as well as the general population saw flying as belonging to a niche of courageous few.
Fortunately, those visionaries who believed in the future of aviation didn’t give up. They understood the potential of air transportation. But they also knew that to become commercial, regulation was needed. This would help with public acceptance and the establishment of a ‘sky market’. Foremost, they needed to demonstrate that airplanes were safe.
Unlike most industries, which prefer to be less regulated, the young aviation industry of the early twenty-century was screaming for legislation. Advocates had to lobby and convince skeptics about the impact that commercial aviation would have on civilization.This may seem risible today; having to defend one’s case on why we needed airplanes. But the risk of an immature and disruptive way of transportation was a paradigm shift many couldn’t fathom.
Does this environment of doubt and resistance sound familiar?
It is indeed comparable to what autonomous vehicles (AVs) are experiencing today. There’re the safety concerns and policy inaction followed by public apprehension and lack of education. As history has shown us, these are the typical symptoms of society adopting a new transformational technology, like airplanes were.
A fully automated self-driving car will save the thousands of lives that are wasted everyday on our roads due to human driving error. Technology companies and officials are aware of this fact. And so, they’re committing themselves to the pushing the new era of transportation forward. However, the public is less understanding and progressive.
Going back to my aero-analogy, in 1926, after much convincing, the government accepted that legislation of the skies was important. Although states tried to regulate airplanes, federal legislation prevailed. And thus, aviation laws were passed, pilots were certified, and airplanes inspected. Commercialization kicked off. The airline industry was born.
Today’s AVs are fighting a similar battle. To achieve public acceptance, a regulatory framework first needs to be put in place. OEMs and TNCs (Transportation Network Companies) are calling for a nationwide ruling, what experts call federal pre-emption. At this moment, every state has its own policies about testing autonomous pilots on their turf. But what about when robo-cars are deployed at mass scale? Surely, having different rules as AVs cross state lines would prove ineffective and confusing. And so, the fight continues.
Besides government officials, self-driving cars face other skeptics. Those whose lives and businesses will be transformed by the novel technology.
Henry Ford would be thrilled (or very disappointed) to see his successors trying to figure out a way to go from a ‘boring’ and ‘outdated’ human-driven vehicle to one without. During his time, it must’ve been like forcing horse-pulling carriages off the road to make way for the four-wheeled combustion engine machines. While many of us are thrilled by the idea of robo-fleets safely driving down the road, others aren’t as receptive and open-minded about it.
Resistance will be encountered, says David Kerrigan, author of the autonomous vehicle book “Life as a Passenger”. According to him, we will be seeing the most friction among the public:
Surely people will die through the deployment process due to AV error. This may upset citizens at first, but this will be counteracted by the fact that fatalities related to car accidents will be less than what we see today. The current one hundred fatalities will be reduced to twenty. It will not be reduced to zero being realistic but it’s worthwhile.
Incidents involving self-driving cars are already stirring up antagonism among technology skeptics. This is to be expected. However, there’s a new group of citizens raging against the machine, advocating for their constitutional right to drive. They are fiercely lobbying for a mandatory and forever steering wheel.
For other less philosophical protesters, the white gloves have come off. In the last two years of Waymo’s self-driving presence in the suburbs of Phoenix, AZ, there’s been reports of about twenty attacks over the defenseless robo-vans. The unfortunate incidents have ranged from rock throwing, middle of the street insulting, all the way to gun pointing. And let’s not forget that there’s still a flesh-and-blood operator inside the vehicle.
Have humans gone mad?
Actually, bullying and harassment of vehicles is not a strange concept in our long and ‘civilized’ automotive history.
Back in the 1930’s people were paid to jump out in front of the newly-released cars and kill themselves. Those parties that felt threatened by automobiles would do merciless acts to stop their adoption. The level of sabotage was high at the time.
As a response and a survival strategy, automobile companies would buy horse-pulled trolley companies, shut them down, and remove the competition. I don’t think that would work in today’s context as self-driving inceptors are the same old-fashioned carmakers.
It is hard to imagine someone working arduously to push back on innovation, but if you think about insurance companies, parking lot owners, taxi drivers, and truckers, there are reasons enough for opposition. Revenues and jobs in industries associated with driving and transportation will be reduced. And eventually eliminated.
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I hope you enjoyed this post related to my book, Autonomousity: Autonomous Vehicles & Emerging Business Models. You can check it out via this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QDM7HTX
I’d love to continue the conversation about self-driving cars! You can either leave a comment in my Medium page or connect with me via email at BejaranoAPaula@gmail.com or LinkedIn.
