A new year puts me in a reflective mood, piqued last week by an article about delivery drones finally coming into their own (yay?)
Never mind that they will put hundreds of delivery drivers out of work. Never mind that I don’t want them in my airspace.
And then there are the cars that drive themselves, “occasionally” blowing through stop signs and mowing down pedestrians (collateral damage?) Motorized scooters that would be great if their drivers obeyed the rules of the road and slowed down or stayed off the sidewalk… and had batteries that didn't burst into flames.
Of course this is nothing new. Remember when all the movie tapes went in the trash and along came DVDs and then Netflix nailed us CDs then DVDs… and now streaming…
Where once there were malls now there's Amazon.
On the horizon or here, depending on who you ask, AI is gobbling up and spewing the words and ideas we once got paid to write.
It’s a zombie world.
I keep remembering movie WALL-E: the last robot left on Earth spends his days tidying up the planet, one piece of garbage at a time. CDs. TV antennas. Steering wheels.
What’s your vision of the future, and what will you miss most? I know my answer.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oddly enough, I read recently that movies on tape - like music on records - are making a comeback among Millennials who were familiar with them from childhood. So maybe past technology isn’t doomed to be zombified, but made into taste markers for the hipper-than-thou crowd.
I’m actually hoping for a REAL self-driving car, from some company far less likely to move fast and break things, as Tesla seems to enjoy doing. I live out in the country, and it’s likely someday in the next decades I’ll have to stop driving. It’s already an issue in our rural state; truly competent driverless cars could be a gamechanger in keeping old folks in their own homes.
The technology that seems to be on its way out that I’ll miss? Money. Saving pennies and turning them in at the bank. Getting a crisp bill in a birthday card from grandma. The pleasure of finding a twenty you tucked into the back of your wallet and forgot.
I like cash. It feels real.
JENN McKINLAY: I see driverless cars every single day and not just one but many. Phoenix and the surrounding burbs are on a grid so we are an ideal place for this technology. When I walk my dogs to the park every morning, I am passed by at least two driverless vehicles.
At first they freaked me out, but now I’m getting used to them. A friend of mine took one and said the upsides were no forced conversation and there’s a kill switch you can hit at any time.
I was thinking about the movie WALL-E the other day. I’ve only watched snippets of it as my mom took the Hooligans to see it when they were little and it made her cry, so I passed on it because I get very sad about the state of the planet and the disposable world we live in.
I was remembering seeing a clip where everyone sat in these robotic chairs and stared at screens and I thought “That is what’s happening to us. Eek! I want to throw out my phone.”
I won’t but for a hot minute it was really really tempting.
I am using a timer on my phone now so I only have a half hour for screen time and that’s it. I want to see the sunrise outside my window, not a filtered one that a company put up on social media to sell me a food delivery service, the latest fashion fad, or a trendy kitchen gadget I don’t need.
Technology is great in so many ways but not when it takes away our freedom to just live in the moment.
LUCY BURDETTE: Good idea Julia about the self-driving car taking older people where they need to go. Would they own the car or would it be like an Uber service? Can’t quite picture…
I haven’t yet seen a self-driving car and honestly the idea still scares me. If there could be a kill switch, couldn’t there also be a ‘drive faster and crash into something’ switch?
I guess I’m dragged kicking and screaming into most new things!!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I can remember when my parents, who were in the theater concession business) were absolutely sure that videotapes would kill the movies. Didn't happen. Although the pandemic and streaming may have made a dent, I think people are always going to want to experience things communally. At least I hope so.
So many things we've thought were outmoded have come back. Polaroids! Vinyl! Fountain pens! Even typewriters! So maybe we will not all turn into screen zombies in our driverless cars, staring at our phones instead of the road.
If we have self-driving cars here in the DFW area, I haven't seen one!
RHYS BOWEN: We have driverless taxis in both San Francisco and Phoenix. I’ve seen plenty but haven’t needed to use one yet. I’d love a reliable driverless car when we make the trip from CA to AZ. So long and boring. I could watch a movie or sleep.
What I worry about with all this new technology is the loss of jobs. People have to work. If everything is done by AI what jobs will be left? Will we revert to a society where the rich technocrats live well, but the only other jobs are in the servant category–their house cleaners, gardeners, garbage men, etc. Where are the jobs with dignity? At least plumbers and electricians make a good living and there will still be people needed to build houses.
I hate the thought of paying people a stipend to exist.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: AH, AI. So much happening with that now, as people realize a lot of it is …well, I just read an article that called a lot of what comes out “AI hallucinations”--that it’s just making stuff up, and as a research tool, it is about as reliable as a bad WIkipedia entry.
Every new thing has to work itself out–look at the technology for our fabulous new Reds and Readers page, right? It’s all a learning curve. And who’d-a thought we’d all become so uber-proficient at Zoom? And now it’s mundane. Look what we do with our phones, and how much we know! (And right, Jenn, WAY too often.)
That said, there's not a cell in my body that would get into a driverless car. Never, nohow, no way.
HALLIE: So what about you? Is technoogy dragging you kicking and screaming? Or crowing joyfully into a tech-filled future?
And what will you miss most? For me, it's no contest: human contact.
