I am an equal opportunity hater of automobiles as well as the Internet. I see them both as equal destroyers of the earth and humanity. Of course, one can argue that both of these technologies have benefits, but once can also easily argue they are widely misused and have very damaging effects on our world. As I was thinking about these parallel universes I was pondering how automobiles are also an “agentic”, in the same sense that “agentic” AI is being hustled right now. They are both being sold as “freedom”, but in reality dictate your reality as part of a wider system that is very difficult to get out of once you are indoctrinated into.
The automobile, like agentic AI is being promised, will accomplish an endless variety of tasks, and make your life easier, giving you more freedom to be you. You can use your automobile to get to and from work, to and from vacations, and to and from the corner store. The automobile can be used for work or pleasure, and comes with a variety of potential configurations, sizes, and shapes that will help you automate the transport of humans, goods, and other tasks. We can further automate these things via taxis, delivery drivers, ride share, and other innovations surrounding how we utilize the automobile. Automobiles seem irreplaceable as an agent for us, and have become a fundamental part of our daily lives, and have also completely shaped our physical worlds around us, defining where we can or cannot go.
Like artificial intelligence, the automobile is used for some pretty wasteful, inefficient, and exploitative use cases. We have to have automobiles to get to work in most places. We drive automobiles to the corner store instead of walking, and then drive it to gym to work out and exercise. Our neighborhoods and buildings are completely dictated by the automobile. We consume crazy amounts of fossil fuels that result in many conflicts around the world. All of it results in crazy amounts of sickness and deaths which we just check off as a cost of doing business. While the automobile is regulated, our lives would be so much better if it was regulated more. There is so much around us that is dictated by the automobile, but over the last hundred years we’ve become numb and blind to what the automobile is doing to us and our planet, which we are also at the precipice with artificial intelligence.
The automobile was sold to us as freedom, but I’ve never felt more free in my entire 50 year life than I do right now without an automobile. I don’t have that monthly payments, the gas and insurance bills, or have to worry where that automobile is at any given moment. Sure, I live in NYC that has walkable streets, bike paths, and a public transit system. I don’t have the automobile dictating my day, telling me where to go. The automobile is an agent for the oil and gas system. The automobile was sold to us as our travel agent, but really was just about keeping us locked into a single mode of transportation that is bad for our health, and the health of the planet. It has become very difficult and costly to extract the automobile out of our lives after a hundred years, and we are entering the same phase with artificial intelligence. However, we have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes with the automobile and approach artificial intelligence in different ways, prioritizing humans and the environment over corporations and profits. Will we make the right choice? Or will we look back in a hundred years and realize it is near impossible to recover from the damage.
