[noduerme]

I still won't even buy a car with GPS. Seems I'm in a vanishing minority. It won't pass, because people born after 1990 have spent their adult lives in a world with surveillance machines in their pockets at all times. Their cars are just big phones. By 2040 you probably won't even be allowed to drive your own vehicle.

[OnlineGladiator]

GPS is a one-way communication. It's really no different from radio in that regard (a signal sent from far away and you have an antenna to read the signal). Unless there's also a cellular modem in your car (which pretty much every modern car has today so I'm not pretending this is unusual) it's impossible for others to monitor your location. You can simply disable the cellular modem and enjoy using GPS without anyone else knowing where you are.

Also, those cellular modems in cars tend to use older technology (this is fairly standard for the auto industry in general since there is such a long regulatory approval process for anything). My 2018 model year car will no longer be able to communicate remotely in January 2022 because the cellular network is being deprecated.

[noduerme]

I understand this. To be clear, I'm willing to use GPS. I'm willing to carry a cellphone. I'm even willing to use those things in conjunction when I choose to put a battery in and turn mobile data on and location on. If there were a car with a built-in GPS that didn't have cellular reception, I would get it. (I used to use a TomTom).

But I won't buy a car where those things are integrated and can't be turned off. Several people here seem to assume that I don't understand that almost all cars from the past decade have this capability.

It's one reason I drive a car from 1980, with basically no electronics whatsoever. (Other reasons being: it's more fun, it's simple to repair, and it will still run after an EMP).

[OnlineGladiator]

I'm saying it's really easy to just kill the cellular modem in pretty much any car. Just short it with solder if you want to. Now you can enjoy almost any car with none of the privacy concerns.

If you prefer older cars that's fine, but there's an easy workaround if the issue really is whether or not there's a cellular modem. I've done this before on multiple vehicles and it won't void the warranty for anything other than parts you want to disable already.

[noduerme]

Hm. Interesting. The newer navigation systems are based on Android I think - right?

My GF has a 2008 Lexus with a GPS/nav that is definitely not Android. All the maps are onboard on a drive. She actually can't update her maps anymore because the physical ROMs or whatever stopped being produced a few years ago. I'm assuming that newer cars just download their maps from (somewhere? Is this connectivity part of what's sold as a "navigation package"?)

There are other reasons I'm not a fan of newer cars (auto-braking, too much fly-by-wire stability/antilock/nonsense pushing your pedals when you don't want them pushed, and "hill hold"). But disabling the tracking stuff would make it more palatable.

Ironically, my radar detector knows exactly where I am and communicates with a network all the time when it's plugged in. But that's for my own joy =D

[emaginniss]

Right, but they can access your car later and see all the places you've been.

[lotsofpulp]

Seems like a futile effort to avoid cars with GPS if you carry a device around that is connected to a mobile network. Is there anyone that does not carry around a dumb phone, if not a smartphone?

[zeckalpha]

Yes. I know people who have dumb phones but they only put the batteries in when they need to make a call.

[eru]

I'm not sure whether the inability to be called is a bug or a feature.

[jcpham2]

mos def a feature

[rhizome]

Presumably you are the only person with the password to your phone unless you use biometrics, with which you can be forced to unlock it. The car's black box, on the other hand, can be dumped by warrant (at the most).

[lotsofpulp]

I am referring to the mobile network operators in the country having knowledge of your location at all times if you have a connected and powered on mobile device, which is then available to the government.

[rhizome]

Tower logs, sure. I'm definitely drifting toward no-GPS dumbphone territory, but there may also be reasons to give up.

[ranger_danger]

You could unplug the antenna or replace the head unit.

[hyperman1]

To be honest, not being allowed to drive your own vehicle is probably a good thing.

See e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/features/global-road-safety/index.... From the first few paragraphs:

  Road traffic crashes are a leading cause of death in the United States for people aged 1–54     

  More than half of those killed are pedestrians, motorcyclists, or cyclists.

Drivers risk other people's lives, hence, other people have a right to demand safety from drivers' actions. Supposing computers do get better than humans in the future, why not just stop humans from doing this dangerous activity?

If someone wants to do some old school driving in 2040, go have fun on a private racetrack or whatever. You can even ignore speed limits.

[zizee]

It does wrestle a lot of control from the individual though. It's not hard to imagine possible abuses of power. Tracking everyone's movements is just the start. What if some government decided to deny service to someone? Or not let certain groups travel to certain places. Imagine opportunities for havoc due to hacking

I'd still like driverless cars, but privacy and freedom of movement rights protections need to be thought about.

[hyperman1]

There are 2 separate aspects here: Driverless, and governement controlled. A driverless car might be a car like today's, except with a computer on board. Governement doesn't connect with your car at an individual level, even if they might adapt the road code a bit to make it more easy on the cars.

The problems you mention are real, but a driverless car doesn't change much. Havoc due to hacking is already possible today, with OTA software updates for cars. Tracking is also possible with cell phones. Driverless car software could be like GPS updates today: Some corporation provides a yearly update and that's it.

[noduerme]

>> Havoc due to hacking is already possible today

But it's still legal to buy and drive a car from the 80s that can't be hacked.

Looking ahead, my concern is that we'll begin to see laws that restrict human controlled vehicles from autonomous lanes and eventually whole roads. This would take a lot of burden off the manufacturers. If cars can use a common protocol to communicate across brands, you don't even need traffic lights or turn signals; you don't even need to stop at intersections. Cars can just slow down or speed up by a tiny bit in coordination with other traffic. At that point it will be impossible for a human to drive at all.

It's impossible to separate increasing vehicle autonomy from increased government control. Once there's an ability to make any car pull over to the side remotely, knowing who is in it and where it's going, all freedom of movement and therefore all human autonomy exists completely at the whim of government. That level of control will be abused sooner rather than later, if not in America then certainly in authoritarian states.

Full self driving is an authoritarian trap.

[egypturnash]

How... how would pedestrians cross these streets?

[noduerme]

You could still have crosswalk lights without having traffic signals. Cars on the network would slow, reroute or stop if the pedestrian crossing lights were active. But if there were no pedestrians they could run through intersections at full speed at 90deg angles to each other, as long as they were all timed with the cross-traffic.

To me this is an extremely dystopian outcome, but it's inexorably where we're going once we have full self-driving. And the Tesla fans, not to mention people who are like "oh humans shouldn't even be allowed to drive! Too dangerous!" will be living in this and looking back wistfully at the days when you could make eye contact with a driver and know whether it was safe to cross the street.

[elzbardico]

You don't need remote control for that. Just a etanol sensor, local processing, car computer refuses to start.

[noduerme]

>> If someone wants to do some old school driving in 2040, go have fun on a private racetrack or whatever

This reminds me of how only rich people could afford to fly places in the 1940s; then the upper-middle class could afford airline vacations in the 60s-80s; then by the 2000s, it was available to everyone so everyone had to be treated like scum/cattle, and once again if you wanted to take a nice vacation you had to be rich and buy first class tickets, or rent a jet.

So your ideal vision for 2040 is that everyone is herded everywhere and no one gets to experience even a fleeting sense of freedom on the road, except the extremely rich who can afford cars that aren't road-legal and can only go to racetracks? Or maybe large private land holdings?

Because currently, we still live in a society where the average person can experience a modicum of freedom - mobility, autonomy, and privacy - by getting in their car and driving it without help from a computer or monitoring from the government. I think that's worth preserving. A generation that grows up without ever feeling that freedom will be way too easy to control.

Maybe driving your own car will seem anachronistic like, say, writing in full sentences without emojis. But if you think about what we'd be losing, as a personal experience of having the privilege to take yourself anywhere on your own recognizance, it seems like a massive step backwards to deprive humans of that. And it sounds like imprisonment.

[vagrantJin]

I certainly don't buy that your car is freedom trope sold to our parents to buy the latest car back in the sixties. Most cars are dailies and only ever drive between home, work, store ad nauseum. So the rosy tinted idea that cars are freedom just means more traffic, complaining about fuel, complaining about tires, complaining about insurance, and the forgetful fact that humans are driving around a metal and plastic box with several dozen litres of flammable fuel at 100km/h - while listening to shitty breakfast show radio.

No thanks.

I'd rather we do away with the car is freedom trope. Most cars arent even useful, just signals to your nieghbours and friends that you are, in fact, balling. No thanks. Uber had the right idea. Don't own it, go where you want and pay up. Should be cheap when it's automated. Don't like that then take public transport...and if you can - just walk. What happened to just walking?

Right...you can't because our spaces are designed for car travel, not people. Do you see my point?

[NDizzle]

Cars were my freedom. People live different lives, you know?

Did you drive 100+ miles, one way, for epic parties when you were in high school? I did. That's how rural Arkansas works.

My first tech job required me to go 130 miles one way for months before I could afford my own place and move closer. How would I have done that with your rules?!

[vagrantJin]

Take a bus.

Or a train.

[notreallyserio]

I have the opposite view: driving doesn't feel like freedom to me. It feels like a necessary evil forced upon my by prior generations. Using a self driving car to get around sounds a lot more free to me as I'd be free to do something other than stare at the road and listen to podcasts.

[postsantum]

I am sure it would work great with the upcoming quarantine of 2038. Fellow citizen, for your own good, your car has been geofenced to your local grocery shop

[noduerme]

This is my cubicle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Projecting 6 different insta feeds on the walls and floor and ceiling will be so freeing for our kids. They can save up for a Meta subscription with GTA GFE. Just like driving in a real car with a real girlfriend, but better.

[Scoundreller]

bicycles (wo)man!

[postsantum]

With the current average BMI my point still stands

[RNCTX]

You're never going to see Elon Musk assume liability for one of his exploding deathtraps. It will always come with the disclaimer that you're responsible for driving it.

Autopiloted cars are just investor marketing.

[oceanplexian]

This brings up an interesting point which is why I recently bought a used car. The late 90s, 00s are probably the last road-legal vehicles that won’t spy on you. I wouldn’t put it past lawmakers to make phoning home mandatory like they did with backup cameras. I’m guessing this will also cause prices to skyrocket since there is a sizable minority of people like us who will refuse to buy a car that’s plugged into the Internet.

[mark-r]

Worse yet, they'll make you pay for a subscription to the spy service! I've had my new car for exactly a year now, and I got multiple warnings that they were going to turn off the connection that they use for roadside assistance etc. unless I ponied up $8 a month.

[KennyBlanken]

I have news for you: not getting a car with navigation doesn't mean squat.

Any vehicle sold with telematics available not only has GPS, but that telematics system is feeding the manufacturer data from the vehicle, including your location.

This happens whether you're subscribing to the telematics service or not. It's always on. Some vehicles do it multiple times an hour or more.

[ranger_danger]

Just unplug the GPS/cell antennas if you're that paranoid? Newer cars will not be made without them anyway because they are actually safety features.

[noduerme]

Being spied on is always a safety feature. That's why North Korea is the safest country in the world. No one ever dies there. Not a single case of covid!

[ranger_danger]

Believe it or not, trying to tell people they don't want someone else just a voice command or push button away in the case of an accident, is actually a hard sell. It might be seen as a privacy invasion to some (whether it's used as such in practice is another story), but to others it might actually save their life.