The upshots of self-driving cars for consumers are obvious: safety and convenience. Benefits for corporations aren’t hard to figure out, either. Being able to study and influence travel behavior will be great for business, and hey, here’s a new captive audience for content and ads. So is every car trip going to become a brainrot binge? Or is there something worthwhile we’ll be able to do with this newfound “freedom?”
This year, more than ever, I feel like I’ve been living under a siege of posts about the glorious era of automation we’re hurtling towards. Just today, The New York Times ran a story about the driverless semi-trucks being unleashed on American highways. In one of the first paragraphs, the author describes the scene inside one of those rigs’ cabs: “In the back seat of the truck’s sun-drenched cabin, a middle-aged man watched YouTube videos on his phone.”
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