Two years ago, my cousin Diwakar and I had walked into a Tesla showroom in Seattle, USA with an idea of having a look at the new toys on display. The salesman politely said "would you like a test drive, Sir? No obligations. All I need is your driving license.
Soon enough, Diwakar was on the wheels, with the Salesman sitting next to him, in a swanky new model 3. I was on the backseat, waiting to be driven around, little knowing about what was coming.
The salesman had pressed a few controls on the rather large 15 inch screen, which was the only "controlling device" that was seen on an otherwise empty dashboard. "Take off your hands, Sir. Let the car do it's job!" Diwakar felt a bit rattled. I was petrified. What? If the driver was not going to drive around, then, who, or what, would? Over the next few minutes of a test drive , I felt like sitting on a yo-yo in Disneyland, quietly praying for "safety" while the onboard chipset deftly got the car to zip from 0 to 60 miles an hour in 6 secs flat, and then deftly maneuvered the busy evening traffic in downtown Seattle, including making 90 degree turns at street corners. I felt totally powerless - and totally powerful - all at the same time. By the time we got off the car, I knew that I was staring at the future of autonomous driving. It is a different matter now, that the stock price of Tesla has accelerated much, much faster than the car itself can - and obviously, on its own autonomous mode in the stock market, as it were.
Welcome to the world of future transportation - possibly. If this scares you, then you better fasten your seat belts and get adjusted to the new reality. Autonomous transportation is not really new. If in doubt, ask Ravana how he had managed to abduct Sita from right under the noses of Rama and Lakshmana.
We have had commercial aircrafts flying on "autopilot" mode during cruise times for the past 40 years. In other words, while you were snoozing away in your aircraft seat for in those long trans-Atlantic flights, and while the pilot and co-pilot were busy probably flirting with those pretty cabin crew, those chips on board ensured that you do not land in Siberia, instead of Paris.
Then came the wave of railway trains going without a human at the head. In today's modern Metro rail links, you find neither an "engine room" nor a driver (or pilot, as some prefer to call them). To me, it is a matter of time before even high speed bullet trains will be driverless. Imagine putting your life at the hands, nee, CPU, of a faceless computer, hundreds ot miles away from the action scene, boarding a bullet train from Chennai, hoping to reach Bengaluru in 90 minutes in one piece. No, my name is not Carl Sagan. This probably is the shape of things to come.
Close on the heels of the Tesla electric vehicle (EV) mania, a couple of years ago, Uber had tried out a driverless taxi service, as a pilot project, in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. This probably turned out to be an experiment ahead of its time. But much like the Bitcoin craze, which has risen again like the Phoenix (pun intended) from the ashes, the driverless taxi service is back in action - only bigger, this time. Again, imagine an Uber taxi service in India, which lands on your door at the appointed time, and drives you through roads and potholes(yes, they will never change, I guarantee) . No more smell of cigarette or liquor smoke from the driver. No noisy mobile phone calls by the the driver, one hand on the wheel and another on the phone. No nosy questions from him. No prying eyes over lone women passengers even at 2 am in the night.
Would you accept that scenario? Is it better? or worse than the present?
A couple of side thoughts:
1. What will then become the value proposition of luxury cars? Assuming I have a million dollars to blow on a Luxury Lamborghini car ochre yellow car, will I be considered by society as being out of my mind, for throwing a million dollars on a car that I cannot really derive any pleasure of actually DRIVING it, but, instead, being meekly driven around?
2. My father retired as a guard, from the Railways. Assuming driverless autonomous vehicle are a likely future reality, will the likes of my father and tens of thousands of drivers like him go jobless? If so, what is the alternative to millions of drivers in the country, who originally may have come from the villages, abandoning agriculture, in the hope making some more money by being drivers? Re-skill them? Into what? Into programming these autonomous cars? Are the governments geared up to gainfully employ the youth of today/ tomorrow
Soon enough, autonomously moving Hyperloops are expected to travel at 700 miles per hour, transporting you from Dubai to Abu Dhabi in 12 minutes flat! That is three times the speed of the fastest autonomous train on earth as of now - the Shanghai City to Pudong Airport shuttle, which covers about 80Km in 8 minutes flat.
It looks like, very soon, the only thing that can travel even faster than these autonomous beauties, are thoughts in the human mind. As the Isavasya Upanishad says:
"anejadekaṃ manaso javīyo nainaddevā āpnuvanpūrvamarṣat |
taddhāvato'nyānatyeti tiṣṭhattasminnapo mātariśvā dadhāti || 4 ||"
It is motionless, one, faster than mind; and the Devas (the senses) could not overtake it which ran before. Sitting, it goes faster than those who run after it. By it, the all-pervading air (Sutratman) supports the activity of all living beings.
