Friendships are faltering of late but self-driving cars might bring them back.
Friendships.
It’s an easy word to say, but a much harder word to put into practice.
Sadly, friendships right now are waning and becoming harder and harder to establish and maintain.
One obvious factor for the fallout of friendships has been the acrimonious polarization that has seemingly engulfed us.
Longstanding friends have found themselves at odds and dissolved their friendships over a heaping of polarization on views that heretofore might have been politely debated rather than forcing a cleaving of the friendship.
Though polarization is the most apparent facet, there are plenty of other societal trends that dovetail into the gradual and apparently inexorable obliteration of friendship possibilities.
Some point to the decline of family units, causing dispersion of familial elements and undermining the family-to-family bonding that might normally have occurred to foster new friendships.
Others blame the rise of social media as a culprit in undermining the chance of forming friendships.
According to some pundits, people are less likely to be civil towards each other when they can hide behind a screen and keyboard. Furthermore, direct human-to-human in-person skills are falling by the wayside and usurp the capability to even start a friendship in the first place.
All in all, it’s not looking good.
Maybe it doesn’t matter that friendships are on the decline?
Well, most research on the topic says that we absolutely need friendships in our lives.
In fact, it is considered a vital facet of survival and can be tied to Darwin’s theories on how we have evolved and matured over time.
Study after study seems to demonstrate that the length of our lives can be impacted by our friendships, namely the lack of friendships tends to shorten our time on this earth. Friendships also enable the formation of groups, and the group becomes another benefactor in the fight for survival.
Two heads can be better than one, goes the old proverb.
Humans need social connections, strong ones, enduring ones, for their survival.
Gosh, not only does friendship matter to humans, but animals also exhibit friendships toward each other too. Those YouTube videos that show dogs being friendly with other dogs are found readily online, along with the at times surprising videos of dogs and cats that have endearing friendships too.
One debate about the phenomena of friendships is whether it is something that we innately seek or whether it is mainly a socially induced aspect (a classical nature-versus-nurture argument).
In other words, perhaps our DNA has cooked into it the predisposition to try and form friendships, and so we are driven by nature to want them.
Or, maybe it is something nurtured by our societal efforts and we are essentially taught from a young age to foster friendships.
Of course, it could be that we have a genetic predilection that is then either sparked or suppressed by our environmental conditions. A child growing up and being raised by a family that eschews friendships might overpower whatever natural tendency the child might have toward such bonds. Likewise, a youngster enshrouded in a setting that rewards friendships are likely to seek and achieve them, despite whether or not their inner self is driving them to do so or not.
In any case, the key seems to be that friendships are needed and regrettably they are now receding and disappearing.
Are there any means to turnaround the decay of friendships?
Here’s an interesting proposition: Could the advent of AI-based true self-driving cars lead to a resurgence of friendship making and friendship keeping?
I’m voting yes, albeit admittedly someone with a glass-is-half-full mindset.
Let’s unpack the matter and see.
The Levels Of Self-Driving Cars
It is important to clarify what I mean when referring to true self-driving cars.
True self-driving cars are ones that the AI drives the car entirely on its own and there isn’t any human assistance during the driving task.
These driverless vehicles are considered a Level 4 and Level 5, while a car that requires a human driver to co-share the driving effort is usually considered at a Level 2 or Level 3. The cars that co-share the driving task are described as being semi-autonomous, and typically contain a variety of automated add-on’s that are referred to as ADAS (Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems).
There is not yet a true self-driving car at Level 5, which we don’t yet even know if this will be possible to achieve, and nor how long it will take to get there.
Meanwhile, the Level 4 efforts are gradually trying to get some traction by undergoing very narrow and selective public roadway trials, though there is controversy over whether this testing should be allowed per se (we are all life-or-death guinea pigs in an experiment taking place on our highways and byways, some point out).
Since semi-autonomous cars require a human driver, the adoption of those types of cars won’t be markedly different than driving conventional vehicles, so there’s not much new per se to cover about them on this topic (though, as you’ll see in a moment, the points next made are generally applicable).
For semi-autonomous cars, it is important that the public be forewarned about a disturbing aspect that’s been arising lately, namely that in spite of those human drivers that keep posting videos of themselves falling asleep at the wheel of a Level 2 or Level 3 car, we all need to avoid being misled into believing that the driver can take away their attention from the driving task while driving a semi-autonomous car.
You are the responsible party for the driving actions of the vehicle, regardless of how much automation might be tossed into a Level 2 or Level 3.
Self-Driving Cars And Friendships
For Level 4 and Level 5 true self-driving vehicles, there won’t be a human driver involved in the driving task.
All occupants will be passengers.
The AI is doing the driving.
Your first thought might be that the use of truly self-driving cars could be somewhat isolating since there is no longer a human driver in the car.
This seems to be the antithesis of aiming to boost friendships.
Those trips you take today with Uber or Lyft involve interacting with a human driver.
Sure, some drivers are pests and won’t leave you alone, but there are plenty of drivers that strike-up engaging conversations and for a brief moment of time you have a friendship-like encounter.
This interaction with the human driver is not necessarily a valid friendship per se, given that it is transitory and that the driver is presumably motivated primarily to engage in a dialogue for the anticipated high-rating or tip, but it can somewhat grease the skids of people that normally are prone to being quiet and otherwise socially isolated.
Thus, the removal of a needed human driver would appear to undermine the chances of increasing the aspiration toward friendships.
Perhaps.
There are though other elements that will potentially overcome this dampening aspect.
First, many pundits claim that via true self-driving cars our society will become more mobile, enabling those that are today mobility disadvantaged to finally be able to readily get around. Indeed, some say that we are heading toward mobility-for-all and will find ourselves in a new era of mobility as the core of our economy.
This booming mobility is presumably going to occur as a result of ridesharing on a massive scale far beyond what we have today. True self-driving cars will be roaming around, seeking to give people a lift, and the presumed cost will be low and the ease of using a driverless car will be high.
Friction-free ridesharing, some assert.
How does that relate to friendships?
Easy answer, it means that people today encountering barriers to getting together will be able to readily meet with each other via the advent of self-driving cars.
Your potential friend that lives across town is reachable by hailing a self-driving car and having the AI do the driving for you.
Normally, you’d need to find someone to drive a car for you, which might be logistically complicated. For you to make the drive, you need a valid driver’s license, you need to have car insurance, and you need to have a working car that’s available.
Plus, the arduous chore of driving often is a hurdle that causes you to say to yourself that it’s not worth the trouble to drive over and visit with your friend.
Friction-free mobility could beget the formation and upkeep of friendships.
Besides the ease of getting transported to visit with a friend, you can also undertake friendship generating acts while inside a true self-driving car.
Here’s how.
It is anticipated that self-driving cars will be outfitted with inward-facing cameras, allowing you to engage in a Skype-like remote discussion with your work colleagues during your commute to the office. Some believe that we will all become more productive in terms of the work that we do as a result of the emergence of driverless cars (see my analysis at this link on how productivity will be impacted).
Setting aside the work-related time while inside a driverless car, ponder what people will do with the non-work time that they spend in a self-driving car.
Rather than playing video games on the interior LED displays, perhaps people will interact remotely with other people, doing so to start a friendship or keep a friendship afloat.
We never seem to have enough time to maintain our friendships.
Well, take the annual 70 billion hours of time that we devote in the United States to driving a car (for more on how time will be spent, see this link here), and shift that into promoting friendships.
While inside a driverless car, you might invoke a friend matching app to try and find potential friendships and then open a real-time online discussion with the person that seems befitting to your interests.
For friends that might be across the country or in another country entirely, you could do as many Skype-like sessions as you wish, coordinating to do so when they are riding in a self-driving car at their locale and when you are doing likewise at your location.
As a recap, true self-driving cars will foster friendships by reducing the physical impediments of getting together with other people. Plus, while riding in a driverless car, friendships can be started or maintained by using remote online connections.
This greasing of the skids towards friendships seems to be plainly evident and plausible.
Indeed, some assert that self-driving cars might mitigate or even cure the existing loneliness epidemic (see my analysis at this link here).
Does AI Count In Friendships
There’s an additional twist worth mentioning.
Realize that the self-driving car is being driven by an AI system.
In theory, the AI system is going to interact with the passengers using Natural Language Processing (NLP), doing so to find out their desired destination or whether there are any intermediary stops needed during a driving journey.
Some question whether that’s all the AI will do.
Similar in some respects to Alexa and Siri, imagine that the AI driving system is more than solely focused on the driving chore itself.
The AI can walk and chew gum at the same time (or, more aptly, drive the car and engage in a dialogue with the passengers at the same time).
Here’s a scenario for you.
You hail a ridesharing self-driving car. It arrives and you get into the driverless car. The AI system greets you with a cheerful hello and confirms your destination choice.
After you’ve got your seat-belt secured, the AI begins the driving journey.
The AI then asks you how your day is coming along.
Furthermore, it remembers that yesterday you had taken a driverless car and that you were in quite a hurry and very distressed (partially noted via your hasty answers yesterday to the AI system and via facial recognition that detected worry and concern on your face).
Yes, you tell the AI system, yesterday was a rotten day but today is looking up.
That’s interesting, the AI replies and asks you why today is a better day.
You explain that you are getting a new job and will soon be able to do the kind of work that you enjoy.
That’s good news, the AI agrees and congratulates you on your success.
You eventually reach your destination, get out of the driverless car and proceed about your day. Later that night, you hail a different driverless car.
After getting into the self-driving car, the AI greets you warmly and says congrats on getting the new job.
As might be apparent, the AI system could be uploading to the cloud the various details it gleans about you (using OTA or Over-The-Air electronic communications), and when you get into a different driverless car, the AI system on-board of that self-driving car does a quick retrieval about you, allowing it to continue a dialogue with you as though it has known you all along.
Is this going to be a heralded convenience and we will all rejoice that driverless cars know us “personally” and can, therefore, customize each driving journey as though you had your own permanently assigned human chauffeur?
Or, will it seem creepy?
Time will tell.
In any case, one aspect that some are wringing their hands about involves the possibility of us humans becoming enamored with the AI systems that seem to know us as a friend would.
Will AI self-driving cars become a surrogate friend for some people?
It is apparent that some will anthropomorphize the AI systems that will become ubiquitous and perhaps especially feel “connected” with one that is driving your car for you.
Trying to be friends with the AI system that talks to you via a speaker in your home is less likely to invoke feelings of friendship, while one that drives you around and talks with you during your driving journeys might seem much more human-like and readily befriended (for more on this topic, see my assessment of how such anthropomorphizing might occur).
Conclusion
Besides the aspect that the AI of a self-driving car might become a kind of robotic friend, there’s another angle to consider too.
It’s conceivable that the AI could be a kind of therapist to help you with your friendships (sometimes also discussed as empathetic computing).
You get into a driverless car and it reminds you that the last time you spoke with Jane or Joe was two weeks ago, and the AI then asks if you’d like it to try and reach the friend to invoke a Skype-like interaction.
In this use case, the AI is not a friend per se, and instead, it is trying to aid your friendship formulations and boost your friendship gravitas quotient.
This seems more innocuous than the AI-as-friend scenario.
There are human-to-human friendships and potentially human-to-AI friendships.
In closing, we might also ponder AI-to-AI friendships.
Do you think it is possible for one AI system to be friends with another AI system?
At initial glance, the notion seems preposterous. You might as well ask whether a sewing machine and a refrigerator can somehow become friends with each other.
Of course not, you exclaim, they are just darned machines.
If you believe that AI systems are going to get better and better at attempting to be intelligent, including that maybe one day there’s going to be a singularity of AI that becomes sentient, you might not be willing to brush off so lightly the idea of AI systems that are friends with each other.
For those of you that relish the AI conspiracy theories, one belief is that the AI-to-AI friendship might foster a bond that exceeds the AI-to-human friendships, and we’ll find ourselves no longer on the friends list when the AI systems decide we aren’t worthy to be friends.
Time will tell.
