If they were at least consistent, you might be persuaded that Our Controllers were truly concerned about our safety. As opposed to using “safety” as the pretext for controlling us.
Not infrequently, to the detriment of our safety.
There are many examples to prove the point but the latest is the push for congressional approval of an exemption for automated cars from the federal safety requirements that apply to not-automated cars. Specifically, an exemption from the regs which forbid the sale of automated cars that lack back-up controls which a human driver can use to prevent the car from doing something manifestly unsafe because its automated systems have experienced a technical hiccup.
Having some way to intervene when an automated car runs amok doesn’t seem like a bad idea – assuming Our Safety is the criteria – especially given that automated cars have run amok and given that the more of them there are in circulation, the more often this will happen – for the same reason you get more flat tires when there are 10 million cars out there driving around vs. 10 cars driving around.
It’s an odds game.
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And the odds worsen over time, too – as technology (like everything else) is subject to deterioration arising from wear.
But the truth that must not be spoken is that technology is fallible. Imperfect humans cannot create perfect anything.
Without, say, a steering wheel – which Ford is talking about removing from its automated cars, just a few years hence – what happens when the car decides to steer itself off the road? If there is no brake pedal, what will be the fate of an automated car – of the people inside the automated car – when mud obscures the camera that feeds the data to the computer…