A Technological Antisolution is a product that attempts to replace boring but solvable political or social problems with a much sexier technological one that probably won't work.
Technological Antisolutions are everywhere because they allow us to continue living an untenable status quo. Their true product is not the technology itself, but the outsourcing of our social problems. They alleviate our anxiety and guilt about not being active participants in political change, and for their trouble, founders and investors are richly rewarded. [...]
There is perhaps no better example of technological antisolution than the self-driving car. American transit is a political crisis on so many levels. [...] This twice-daily society-wide masochistic ritual destroys the air quality in our cities, the psychological well-being of its participants, the physical spaces we inhabit, and the only wet rock capable of sustaining human life in an otherwise cold and unwelcoming universe.
We all instinctively know this is madness, and into this breach steps the self-driving car industry. They offer to leave our lives and our cities completely intact. They offer the status quo, but perfected. They offer convenience in exchange for political apathy and patience. Perhaps NPR can give you some tips on how to deal with your traffic-anxiety while you wait for self-driving cars.
Self-driving cars in which you sit in a personally owned consumer vehicle with no steering mechanisms and continue your life as before are a lie. They are not coming.
I have 50 or 60 employees, whose jobs have skill requirements that run the gamut from "empty trash cans" to "mix a live band". So every time I see my general manager standing on a ladder I say, "Surely you could have delegated this." But unfortunately, it seems to be the case that almost nobody under 35 knows how to:
