The emergence of autonomous cars or highly automated vehicles (HAVs) impacts almost the entire population. Everyone, whether or not they own a car or not, uses the same roads that HAVs will be using. Whether they are in the HAVs themselves, riding a bike, on a public bus or even walking on the sidewalk, they have the potential to interact with the cars in some way. Everyone will be effected by the introduction of HAVs to the mainstream. However, my audience in this case is the people who believe that HAVs do not have a place in today’s society. The two biggest problems people have with HAVs are that they are uncomfortable with humans not having control of something as dangerous as a car, or their job is at stake. HAVs have the potential to effectively make truck drivers – who make up the single largest employer of Americans – obsolete.
The concept of kairos would best be used on the group of people who do not think HAVs should be on the road. I realize that there will be some transition period in which those people may be more uncomfortable on the road in the future than they are today and it will be very important that this period of time is as short as possible. The best way to do this would be to follow along with Miller’s view and to ‘ripen the moment’ when it is most advantageous. For example, I have recently seen in the news, a dash cam recording of an HAV that saw an accident occur a few cars in front of it. Before I was able to react to what I was seeing, I was able to hear in the video the car sounding warning alarms as it began to brake as it safely avoided an accident. I would speculate to say that with the increase of HAVs on the roadways, there will be more of these type of news stories and videos that will surface. It is at this moment when my argument is strongest and is the time to reinforce my belief that HAVs are ultimately better for society.
The topic of autonomous cars is definitely a contentious issue as of now because it is a nascent technology. As seen with older people’s technological illiteracy, many are afraid of adapting new technology into their lives. Many are afraid of the idea of losing control of their vehicles. This is compounded by news reports of Tesla cars getting into accidents while in autopilot mode. In many cases, the investigation usually finds that it was driver error, however, the danger of autonomous vehicles has already been implanted into the publics minds.
We are at the transition point for self-driving cars, so there isn’t a better moment than now. Having a bunch of self-driving Ubers around has changed a lot of people’s stances on autonomous cars here in Pittsburgh. When Uber is able to bring it to the national stage, many people will get to experience autonomous cars first hand and will understand that they are safe and convenient. It would be advantageous to time your pieces to new advancements of autonomous cars.