Weblog Bas – Technology makes us defenseless

And from bad to worse. The driver assistance nuisance escalates. Along the way you are exposed to a cacophony of warning signals. There are beeps for the speed limit and exceeding it, vibrations for unsigned lane changes. Do not look at the road for two seconds and the on-board camera registers a loss of concentration. Stay focusedwarns the Nio I now drive sternly. Big brother is watching you.

Cause: the Euro NCAP. It also assesses cars on their driver assistance systems. Then everyone likes to put their best foot forward. Thus another starbeat becomes one rat races. In order to meet the increasing safety requirements, all stops are blown in Bliebjesland.

I thought, Maybe one day you won’t hear it anymore.

No.

So I neatly switch off all helpers in every new test car. Due to the increasing number of assistants and the not always optimal findability of the menus, this is often still quite a hassle. And tomorrow I can usually start again, because the systems are reactivated at every start. I understand very well. A driver assistance program that would allow itself to be silenced for good by refusers is not worth a wink. But in this way the fight against interference becomes a fight against the dead. The Lexus RX 450h, a kind of permanently screaming pinball machine, warned me insistently after the safety assistants had been switched off via the on-board computer that I had switched them off. How do we ever get out of that vicious circle?

Complaining about progress is the favorite pastime of seniors who can no longer keep up with changes and would prefer to leave things as they are. In the discussions with my children, I feel that our differences of opinion are also rooted in a generation gap. Millennials and GenZ think differently. They have inherited other values ​​outside the home, they have a different position in society. Times change. It is an interesting question whether their generations and mine think differently about electronic surveillance. I suspect so. They stand with one foot in the woke culture. They are used to censorship. They say, what are you fussing about, old man?

No misunderstandings: in principle I have nothing against facilities that can improve my safety. I do not blindly believe in my responsibility. I know I make mistakes. But it is precisely this sense of fallibility that helps me stay focused with the sharpness that I could eventually lose if I delegated it to electronics. The biggest risk of high tech for humanity, which applies to ChatGPT-level AI as well as ADAS, is that insidious, progressive loss of ability to act. In the car I see the technology exceeding critical limits with potentially counterproductive consequences. Those systems do more than get on your nerves. To the extent that they are now manifesting, they are starting to become a security risk. They disrupt a concentration that is already under high pressure in hectic traffic conditions. You constantly have to swerve, frequently look over your shoulder, constantly adjust your speed, sometimes just a little slower than the traffic signs require. Then you have to keep your head up and you don’t want to be constantly confused with panic signals.

As far as I’m concerned, a debate can quickly start in this branch of the sport about the relationship between ends and means. That is about much more than technology; it is about the existential question of what autonomy you should be willing to give up. My intuition says: as little as possible. You used to say: technology serves people. Now I think: technology makes us defenseless by taking everything off our hands that we should be able to do ourselves, with all the associated risks. As mere mortals we can do so little more. Put me – highly educated, hands-on, not retarded – in the wilderness for two days and I’m done. I can’t build a hut, hunt, fish, poach, navigate by the stars, tie knots, or make fire. If we ever have to go into survival mode, our helplessness becomes a real problem.