So, are you ready to slip into the passenger seat of a car that drives itself?
Ready or not, here they come.
Most major car companies have been investing heavily in the design and production of autonomous vehicles. Tesla, Ford, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz have led the way, not to mention start-ups like Waymo, Google’s self-driving car project.
Ten years ago, optimism was off the charts.
Test models had compiled an excellent safety record. Self-driving tractors had proved they could deliver faster, more precise results than tractors controlled by human farmers. An 18-wheeler drove 120 miles by itself from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs CO toting 50,000 cans of Budweiser.
It appeared the great American dream of driving off the lot with a shiny new car was on the ropes. John Zimmer, the president of Lyft, even suggested that private car ownership would “all but end” in most major American cities by 2025.
Having arrived at that auspicious year, however, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of Americans don’t have a self-driving car sitting in their garage, and have probably never ridden in one.
What happened? Autonomous technology has moved forward in fits and starts while struggling to address obstacles in real-world driving conditions.
Self-driving software, for instance, has to know how to navigate rain, fog, chuckholes, missing traffic signs, and police officers rerouting cars at a crash site. How can a driverless vehicle resolve the “you-go-first” ritual of waving to another driver when two cars arrive simultaneously at an intersection?
Last summer, a Waymo self-driving taxi ran into a utility pole in Phoenix, Arizona. Engineers promptly recalled all 672 such taxis to adjust their software’s response to “pole-like items.”
Such stories, although rare, do not build public confidence. A 2022 survey revealed that only 27% of the world’s population would feel safe riding in a self-driving car.
Furthermore, how is Vin Diesel ever going to make the next seven installments of the Fast and Furious film series if autonomous vehicles won’t let him drive through the lobby of an office building?
Consumer pushback is predictable. The exhilaration of taking the wheel has become a defining feature of American culture. Why should such freedom be curtailed?
Here’s a really good reason: People crash a lot.
If this proves to be an average year, some 43,000 of our fellow citizens will die in vehicular accidents, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of others who will be injured or whose lives will be forever altered.
People drive angry. And drunk. And fall asleep at the wheel. And take selfies. And become distracted. And text their friends. And take outrageous chances in winter weather. And become lost. None of which will ever happen in a properly engineered driverless car.
Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation, muses, “Soon we may well look back in shock that we ever let humans drive cars on their own.”
While many people are just learning how to spell autonomous, it’s a word that has been around for a very long time.
Autonomous is a hybrid of two Greek words: auto (“self” – think “auto-mobile,” something that moves by itself) and nomos (“law” – think “astro-nomy,” the laws and facts pertaining to “asters,” or stars).
Something autonomous is self-governing. It is independent. It doesn’t take orders from someone or something else, and isn’t controlled by an outside force.
While most of us aren’t ready with a snappy definition of autonomous, we all know its meaning by heart.
That’s because, according to the Bible, the yearning for autonomy has been at the very center of humanity’s headlong rush away from God’s desires for our lives.
Adam and Eve (and every human being to follow) would dream their own dreams, determine their own boundaries, and make up their own rules, thank you. We will be governed by self-law. We will sit in the driver’s seat. God can take shotgun if he wants (or ride in the back), but we will keep our fingers tightly wrapped around the wheel.
Which is why “autonomous,” when it comes to human behavior, is such an appropriate 21st century synonym for “sin.”
Why doesn’t God want us to be in control of our own lives?
Here’s a really good reason: People crash a lot.
The essential first step to spiritual health is therefore an act of surrender. We hand our car keys over to God.
Are you ready to slip into the passenger seat of your own life this year, and entrust yourself to the God who is entirely capable of being driver, navigator, and mechanic?
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