Modern moment

John Butler worries about our increasing reliance on machines

John Butlerworries about our increasing reliance on machines

I read a news story recently about a man in Germany who crashed his car because his satellite navigation system had told him to. As far as I know, he wasn't suffering from a delusional medical condition. Apparently, he had been driving on a road parallel to a railway line, as per instructions. The satnav system began to show a right turn on the little digital map on the dashboard - a turn it wanted him to take. It told him the turn was in 200 metres. As the man continued driving, however, he could see no such turn.

It's enjoyable speculating about the unreported background to this kind of news item, so I propose that the man was late for an appointment with his accountant, who had spent the past couple of weeks going over the receipts he had provided to him in an old shoe box. Further, the man was broke and late, and his accountant charged him by the hour. He had bought the satnav system a week before, to stop him from getting lost, from wasting time and petrol.

The satnav was now saying that the right turn was 100 metres away. The man approached the supposed junction fretting about his unpaid tax and the fact that no such turn existed. The satnav started to beep loudly. The man was late, his glasses were starting to get a little foggy and, as the synthesised voice started barking at him "right turn now, right turn now, right turn now" (in German), he panicked and swung the car right, slamming it into a wall separating him from the railway tracks.

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I am trying to imagine how he must have felt as steam rose from the bonnet and he sought out his mobile phone from underneath the seat, the CD on the stereo skipping over and over and over on the same lyric. He must have felt like a fool. He had over-ruled the evidence provided by his own eyes and abdicated responsibility to a machine. Who in their right mind would do that? And would the satnav apologise, either then or later?

It's only when technology fails us that we come to question the way it controls us, but it must sometimes fail, because we are its designers. I'm happy to depend on a digital device to wake me up in my bed, because sleeping it out is rarely life-threatening. But when it comes to sitting in motorised vehicles moving at high speeds, I like a person to be in charge. Even if you don't own a car or a motorbike, the freedom of travelling the road without digital accompaniment can nourish your soul in a myriad of ways.

I love the Irish custom of flashing your hazard lights at cars or trucks that have allowed you to overtake them. After overtaking, I get a frisson of pleasure when the headlights of the car behind briefly flash back to me in acknowledgment of my hazard lights.

The exchange makes me feel as if I'm part of a highly functioning, interconnected society, and I always find myself wishing there were a third level of conversation to which we all could graduate. Maybe we - the overtakers - could put on our wipers to say we're heading to Galway. Maybe then the overtaken could beep twice to propose a milkshake at Supermac's in Moate. If the overtakers couldn't make it, we could put on our rear wipers - to propose a rain check.

Another snippet of car language I love is the way Volkswagen Beetles often beep or flash at other Beetles. I can only imagine what would happen if I were a front-seat passenger in a Beetle and our driver overtook a savvy truck driver, then saw another Beetle approach on the crest of the next hill. It would be like the Tower of Babel inside the car, all flashing, winking and waving. I would enjoy that very much.

I remember driving back from Galway with a group of friends in the early 1990s and overtaking a truck emblazoned with a logo reading "Angel - Ireland's Leading Lady of Pop". Beside it was a huge picture of Angel, a comely blonde with a microphone, pouting for the camera. She was touring Ireland with her band. A friend found a piece of cardboard and a pen and scrawled "We love you Angel" across it. He stuck it up in the back window, and within 15km we were standing on the roadside, chatting with Angel and her road crew. This exchange belongs only with those times.

Man and machine. If you watch 2001: A Space Odyssey today, the idea of Hal-9000, the film's intelligent computer, is slightly less fantastic than it used to be. It seems slightly less outlandish to think that the relationship between us is changing, and it seems less of a leap of logic to think that the machine is gaining ground in this battle for control of our daily lives. At any rate, if it seems mad to think in this way, it can't be any madder than obeying your satnav and slamming your car into a concrete wall.

Like everyone over a certain age, I don't know where the old days have gone. I would imagine that "Ireland's Leading Lady of Pop" is thinking the same thing. I would say the 16-wheel juggernaut that is You're a Star has caused her some problems. No doubt it's harder to be on the road nowadays.

John Butler blogs at http://lozenge.wordpress.com