We鈥檝e reached the era of the self-driving car! Congratulations, us. Ford, General Motors, and Volkswagen are all in the autonomous driving game, along with many up-and-comers. Waymo (a division of Alphabet, Google鈥檚 holding company) describes theirs as 鈥渁 safer car for everyone.鈥�
In a way, it鈥檚 shaky ground we鈥檙e standing on. One, because we鈥檙e standing on a foundation of dated perceptions of the future, and they鈥檙e all from entertainment. Picture those anthropomorphized creatures with two-dimensional personalities: Herbie the Love Bug, KITT from Knight Rider, and Christine the possessed car sprung from Stephen King鈥檚 imagination; an overly friendly buddy, a highly intelligent and loyal and clever helper, or, you know, a demon. Two, to bring us back to current day, more of these cars are becoming involved in accidents, which gives us opportunity to test and perfect its technology. In March of 2017 in Arizona a while turning, though no injuries resulted; in Florida in May of 2016, a , causing one fatality.
It鈥檚 important we allow technology to advance, and promote its advancement, but it鈥檚 equally as crucial if not more so, to be aware of what we name our new creations! Words are cultural artifacts that wear each new context or sense like a carving. They add to, without erasing or blotting out, what was already there. We see this a lot in technology, where mobile phones and handhelds market the portability of wireless communication, and a Segway is a clever segue from point A to B. And there are many examples of computer metaphors, where the user interface is named after the real-world objects it resembles. After you wrote that virtual 鈥減aper鈥� it felt pretty good to put it in the 鈥渇ile鈥� on your 鈥渄esktop.鈥�
To call these new cars driverless or self-driving tends to conjure up an otherworldly magical ease of the invention, especially for those of us who grew up in times that required more hands-on doing鈥攍ike going to the library to do research before cell phones or the Internet existed. They鈥檙e strange metal boxes we sit in that take us wherever we need to go, somehow without us having to move or even be awake if we choose not to. We sit back and give it a destination. It knows the lay of the land, like a sentient being who鈥檚 followed the map so many times it may have internalized the terrain. Maybe it even made the map. And like magic, it also perceives spontaneous obstacles: other cars (manned or unmanned), pedestrians, changing lights and stop signs, road blocks, and on and on.
But it鈥檚 not magic nor sentient. A human isn鈥檛 physically operating it, true, but it鈥檚 not going on its own intuition. It鈥檚 not driving itself, so what do we call them? Autocars, autodrivers, robot-taxis, auto-automobiles or auto2mobiles don鈥檛 fit for the same reasons that driverless and self-driving don鈥檛. Hmm. Here are a few attempts at renaming this new thing we have roaming around with us in tow:
This handful draws on the 鈥渓ook mom, no hands!鈥� aspect of the car:
Passive transfer
Idler鈥檚 usher
Leisure wheels
Relaxi taxi
This set calls out the car as synthetically cognizant:
Conscious cab
Awake wagon
Watchful wheels
AnticipaTaxi
黑料网 do you think we should call this new technology? Share your ideas with us on or !
