Self-driving cars will be the end of us | Opinion

If Tesla boss Elon Musk achieves his goal to bring fully self-driving cars to the world by the end of this year, then we may as well call it quits as a species. I'm serious. I don't reckon anybody has properly thought through the possible knock-on effects of autonomous cars. I'm not just talking about giving up the joy of driving, no, the potential consequences are far wider ranging than that.

Musk revealed his mission to make some Tesla models completely autonomous before the end of the year at an energy conference recently in Norway. He also added putting his Starship Mars rocket into space onto his 2022 to-do list. He's a busy man.

"The two technologies I am focused on, trying to ideally get done before the end of the year, are getting our Starship into orbit... and then having Tesla cars to be able to do self-driving," Mr Musk announced to the crowd at the conference.

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"Have self-driving in wide release at least in the US, and... potentially in Europe, depending on regulatory approval."

Tesla vehicles are currently equipped with what the company calls Autopilot - a sophisticated form of Adaptive Cruise Control. There's also Full Self Driving Mode (FSD) above Autopliot.  Despite Mr Musk's showman-style names and claims the systems aren't at all fully autonomous.

There is an official scale for autonomous driving technology and Tesla's Autopilot is classified as Level 2 and that's a long way off Level 5 which is full-self driving under all conditions.

The difficulties of producing a vehicle which can not only stop, go and turn on its own, but make its own decisions while protecting the lives of its passengers and other road users, is immense.

Tesla vehicles are currently equipped with what the company calls Autopilot.

Still Mr Musk is determined to achieve what other car companies are struggling to conquer, and in October 2021 the first Full Self Driving Beta software was released for testing - by Tesla owners, but mainly Tesla employees. Subsequent updates have been released and we're currently up to version 10.69.2 which costs owners $15,000 to install.

Now, I do have an issue with the cost, because $15K for a piece of software which still doesn't take your Tesla much nearer to Level 5 is frankly robbery in my opinion. It's no different to buying hair tonic from a guy who rode into your town in the Wild West.

But that's not my main issue with the quest for self-driving vehicles. No, my concern is that if through some major advancement we are able to build fully autonomous cars that can operate and make decisions better than a human driver then we will never be allowed to drive again.

And as I said at the start, this is not just about the sheer joy of driving, it's about being trusted with the responsibility to make decisions.

You see if, as Mr Musk is promising, a fully autonomous car will pilot itself a lot more safely than a car being driven by a human, then lawmakers, policy makers and even your insurance company are either going to make it very difficult or expensive for you to drive yourself.

The campaigns for zero road fatalities and even zero accidents that'll be heralded by politicians and fueled by car makers such as Tesla will be hard to argue against.

I can hear the dinner table conversations now.

"Why do you want to drive yourself? Do you want people to die?"

"People aren't as safe as autonomous cars. When was the last time an autonomous car got drunk or angry or tired?"

"Autonomous cars can see the traffic around them for kilometres ahead with radars and sensors in pitch dark, fog and rain. These advanced cars even talk to each other; they all know what they're going to do before they do it."

"What about how that autonomous car swerved to miss those kids while also not hitting the petrol tanker? A human doesn't have those skills"

And maybe they're right. Maybe in years to come a fully autonomous car will be able to drive better and safer than a human.

But I'd like to remind Elon Musk of what he said at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2021.

"I am really quite close... to the cutting edge in AI, and it scares the hell out of me," he said. "It's capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows, and the rate of improvement is exponential.

"Unless we learn how to prepare for, and avoid, the potential risks.

"AI could be the worst event in the history of our civilization."

Once that trust and responsibility is taken away, what other aspects of our lives will AI and automation appear to make the world safer and more efficient?

So, while I love driving myself - the shifting through the gears of a manual sports car at night on a winding road and my 1951 Ford with its burbling V8 - I cherish having the responsibility and privilege of ducking down the shop in our family Skoda. That drive to the shops is a contract of trust between myself and society.

And once that trust and responsibility is taken away, what other aspects of our lives will AI and automation appear to make the world safer and more efficient?

Will humans be allowed to construct buildings anymore? Fly airplanes? Perform heart surgery. Even cook for ourselves? What will this do to us? It will be the end of us.

Human beings are incredible organic machines that have been in constant development with updates rolled out for millions of years. Our ability to pilot cars day-in-day out at speeds 100 times faster than we evolved to run is frankly remarkable. Our decision-making skills behind the wheel are also stunning given that none of us have ever really had any more training than our parents showing us how to do it.

I'll say it again - humans are magnificent. And to make a car that drives as well as a human would almost require its creator to invent an electronic human.

If self-driving cars are inevitable, then why not use them to increase the mobility of people who can't drive? For the elderly or disabled or even just people who don't have a licence, a self-driving car would help our society.

But in the meantime: don't sell yourself out humans. You're better than any software Mr Musk can sell you.