An Author's Look Into the Future

We were supposed to have flying cars by now.

 

Not aimed at you, Elliotte, but -- blah blah blah technology is everything blah blah blah we won't do anything the same blah blah blah and so on. Where is the proof that any of this will actually happen in such a short period. I will be long dead and gone before a majority of automobiles in the U.S. are either electric or autonomous.

 

You want to see a disruptive technology? Self-driving 18 wheelers are not far away, and hundreds of thousands of truck drivers are going to be out of work with few other marketable skills.

 

I still see "Drivers wanted: Call 800-xxx-xxxx" on the back of just about every truck I see on the highway.

 

Don't be too certain. I saw radiologists get outsourced. Chest x-rays for hospital in-patients used to be shot in the very early morning. The films would be hung for the radiologists to interpret starting at 7 am and dictate a report, which would be typed up and put in the patients chart. All of a sudden the hospital figured out that the digital films they now got could be e-mailed to radiologists in Bangalore, who would read them cheaper. The reports would be ready before the day shift even arrived. Add in that now there is dictation software which interprets the dictation and puts it into the patient's computer file, no transcriptionists need apply.

 

Yup. Wasn't that long ago that Kodak sold a shit-ton of film for x-rays, too. All digital now, and if not (because a doctor has paid for and functional equipment and does not want to upgrade) they will soon, because it's much easier to e-mail an image or burn a copy onto a CD and hand it to the patient on the way to a referral appointment.

 

The adoption of driverless and fully electric vehicles will vary wildly based on where you live. Urban and rural areas are headed for really divergent transportation futures.

 

The part of that equation nobody has figured out is how many people like to drive and will want to maintain control in the future.

I drive a 2006 TJ. Barring a catastrophic wreck, I will never get rid of it. I like driving. How many millions are there like me?

 

I am. I drive a sports car because it pleases me. It pleases me most when I take it out with the top down on a crisp morning and wring it out on a curvy road.

Fuck an autonomous car.