The Future is Here (and it's terrifying)...

As a classic car owner naturally a lot of my my automotive interest lies with the cars of the past. Indeed if you’re an owner too you'll understand. But it stands to reason when your classic was initially launched it should have at least looked like something from (or for) the future because, like all new cars, whenever they're launched, they were designed to compel you to replace your outmoded current car. 

But it's hard to imagine isn't it? Seeing your classic from that perspective: as a thing of the future. And that got me thinking. You see, long ago, when I was a young lad in the seventies, I used to daydream about what life would be like in the year 2000. I looked forward to what I thought would be a completely different world, my youthful imagination fuelled by images from visionary TV like Star Trek, Space 1999 and Captain Scarlett. 

I pictured some kind of utopia in which everything would be shiny and white. For some reason I thought when the clock sounded midnight at the very end of 1999, the world would suddenly become excitingly space-age. We'd immediately be dressed in the the same lurid colours worn by Captain Kirk et al, all food would come in pill form, robots would fulfil our every whim and aerodynamic cars would hover soundlessly their serene drivers effortlessly manoeuvring them with a button encrusted joystick. 

And what happened when the dawn broke on the new millennium? Absolutely nothing. Well nothing that exciting. When the odometer of time rolled over to 2000 stubbornly the world looked exactly the same. Even the apocalyptic promise of millennium bug-related chaos turned out to be a spectacular damp squib.

Of course, things have changed. I mean, how did we cope without smart phones, broadband, tablet computers and sat navs? And it can't be denied that cars have become much more complex (and safer). Even today's most modest motors have more computing power than it took to land a man on the moon. 

Happily, on the whole, these things have made our lives easier and arguably richer. But think on this. All this technology is also slowly eating away at us. How many of us have lost the ability to reliably spell thanks to MS Word? Can you still read a map or do you let your Tom Tom do all the work? How would you find out anything new without the use of Wikipedia?

But now I'm worried as driving seems to be the next skill that will be gradually consumed. You may have noticed the recent announcement that the UK will be a prime testing ground for driverless robot cars.  Headlines inform us these vehicles will be on the roads by 2017 and the Highway Code is being modified to facilitate their arrival. 

Yes that's right; autonomous robot cars bristling with cameras, radar, satellite technology and servos will soon be out there. Driving around. Driverless. Hugely complex cars in which you sit like a muppet; an inert passenger letting the vehicle do what the hell it likes. Are we mad? I get concerned about what my smart phone is doing as it updates itself without so much as a by your leave. This thing is sending information about me to God knows who as it tracks my movements, web searches, telephone calls and texts all as I wander around oblivious to what the sly informant in my pocket is up to. That's a small phone you'll note, not a tonne of computerised car. So it'll be a landmark day when I sit in one of these automotive automatons, punch in my destination and then do, well, nothing. Except fret.

Old Ford or thing of the future?

This is not a new idea as you probably know. The Motor Research Centre in the UK did some experiments in the sixties on this very same theme. Interestingly (for me at least) they used a Citroen DS19 for these trials due to the ready supply of high-pressure hydraulics to power the extra doo-dads fitted to enable it to self-drive. I've seen the very car they used and it's a Heath Robinsonesque affair at best. It ultimately didn't amount to much as it relied on magnetic rails that needed to be sunk into the road. But now, with modern technology, it's all become terrifying real.

There's lots to concern us here. What happens if these cars crash? I don't think the magistrate will be sympathetic to your excuse of not having witnessed the incident because you were asleep on the back seat after too many post-work shandies. 

How will a ruthlessly logical computer cope with the utterly illogical driving of a late-night taxi driver, the bewildered elderly, a baseball-capped youth in a souped-up Citroen Saxo or an Eastern European lorry driver?  Will it blithely drive you off an unfinished bridge because the inadequate 'bridge closed' sign had blown over? The possibilities are endless and none are good. Be afraid, very afraid.

However, for me, the most knicker-filling prospect of this new technology is not if, but when, these cars become self-aware. All the fictional dystopias of Mad Max or the Terminator could become the actual, and very real, stuff of nightmares. 

As we drive - hands-free - into this cataclysmic future Asimov's three laws of robotics will be summarily disregarded, especially the one about not harming a human. And you can be sure it won't be a nude Arnold Schwarzenegger turning up in a flaming ball of plasma that initiates your doom. No! It'll be when your suddenly-sentient car locks all its doors, pumps exhaust gasses into the cabin and then goes on a unfettered killing spree as your ossified remains rattle around in the foot wells.

So, as you admire the cars from the past, spare a thought for the future. One day soon, as you cruise around in your classic or everyday car (enjoying the actual experience of driving), you might find yourself facing up to one of these futuristic monsters as it murderously bears down on you. Imagine looking into the petrified eyes of the hapless 'driver' as he screams his last words and Armageddon ensues. It's likely none of us will come off best. Welcome to the future! 

So on that prophetic note I'll sign off this rambling with the promise that: 'I'll be back'.