Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

Here's why we should fear driverless cars

10/7/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
You have to go back more than a century to find a time when the world anticipated the certainty of a new invention the way it does today.

​With the announcement Tuesday that Toyota expects to sell self-driving cars by 2020, the list of manufacturers with similar goals — Apple, Google, Nissan and Tesla, to name four — lends an air of certainty to the notion that we are approaching what I call a “movie dating” moment.
Today, any movie made before the late 1990s is conspicuous for its lack of cell phones. A smart phone would render a lot of those plots meaningless.

Some day, it will be just as easy to date films by whether automobiles are driven by humans or computers. But the ones with computer-driven cars may have frightening plot twists, indeed.

The question for this generation is whether we are going to let government or the free market navigate us through the alligator-infested waters that surround this new technology. However, a satisfying answer, even for a free-market lover, doesn’t come easy.

The last time we all expected this kind of life-changing invention was in the earliest years of the 20th century. People weren’t as sure about the exact date when heavier-than-air flying machines would be available. But, other than the skeptics who doubted it was possible, many people were confident it would come soon. Newspapers were filled with stories of flying machine contests or of quotes from experts working on overcoming this or that problem.

On Aug. 12, 1903, the New York Times quoted Alexander Graham Bell as saying, “No one who has noticed the flight of birds can for one moment doubt the possibility of flight by a body specifically heavier than air.”

And no one today who has used a GPS app or witnessed the intense pace of computer innovations over the years can doubt that self-driving, or smart cars are possible.

I imagine many people in 1903 were optimistic about inventions and their potential. Today, experience tempers optimism. We know how hard criminals work to hack into banks, retail outlets, our personal lives and the Pentagon. It doesn’t take much to imagine what they could do with a driverless car.

Just to add to our sense of dread, last summer researchers working for Wired were able to remotely access a Jeep Cherokee through a cellular connection to the car’s entertainment system.

According to Business Insider magazine, they implanted a code allowing them to take over the engine and drive the car into a ditch.

And that wasn’t even a driverless car.

But while we imagine movie plots involving James Bond in an expensive foreign car that won’t go where he steers it, consider that your problems may be more costly than deadly. For example, your car may suddenly stop and display a message telling you it won’t start again unless you wire money to a secret location. This sort of “ransom” software already infects some computers.

Concerning the lack of online security in modern cars, Business Insider quoted Jeff Williams, chief technology officer at Contrast Security, as saying, “It’s like Bambi walking out of the forest into the field.”

So what do we do about this?

Some members of Congress have an idea. The Security and Privacy in Your Car Act, sponsored by Democratic Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, would codify a lot of standards and rules for automakers, forcing them to confront the problem.

Many Republicans, on the other hand, think that sort of heavy-handed approach would stifle innovation. They prefer letting the industry deal with ways to keep customers happy.

Ask yourself whether you really believe a federal law will keep criminals from hacking your car. Then ask yourself whether the free market has done a good job keeping them from hacking computers so far.

Now you understand what lies on the horizon.
Some experts say you’ll be OK as long as you remember to keep updating your car’s software.

Thanks, experts.

​If anything may be said with certainty about the looming auto revolution, it is that it will drive us crazy.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.