The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future

Astonishing technology developments, from personalized genomics to self-driving cars to artificial intelligence, could make our lives better. On the other hand, these very same technologies could raise the specter of a frightening future―eugenics, a jobless economy, loss of privacy, and exacerbating economic inequality. Vivek Wadhwa and Alex Salkever propose that we ask three questions about any new technology: Does it have the potential to benefit everyone equally? What are the risks and the rewards? Does the technology more strongly promote autonomy or independence? They offer a host of solutions to mitigate the harm that tech can cause but ultimately leave it to the listener to make the final decision. This revised edition includes sections on accelerating changes in genomics and the use of CRISPR to modify human embryos, reexamining driverless cars in the wake of Uber deaths, and exploring how advances in AI are enabling robots to perform tasks we naively assumed would remain the province of humans.