When I was in middle school, I was so excited to be a grown-up. I heard what everyone said and saw all the artistic interpretations of what the year 2025 would be like. Cars would be flying through the sky around buildings that could practicallly touch the clouds. There were windows everywhere to let in the sunlight and people would always be smiling and waving at each other around town.
Benzinga
Growing up, however, brought none of these changes to light. Of course it was always an unrealistic expectation, no one can argue that--but it was a great fantasy.
When I look at artists who are painting the future now, it's a grim one. There's smoke and children without parents. Buildings are crumbling to the ground and city officials have blockades around every corner.
DeviantArt
This was one of the first images to pop up on my screen when I typed in "Trump's America." Frightening, isn't it? How has our image of what the future would be like changed so much? Where did we go so wrong? What changed that we prefer gunfire over grand, sparkling cities?
Remember when the "Back to the Future" trilogy was so big, and everyone was absolutely positive their forecasts were going to be accurate? We were all going to be time-travelling and getting from place to place on hoverboards. What kind of movies do we have now that depict the future? Well, we have the zombie apocalypse and doomsday upon us.
Driverless cars have become somewhat of a reality in small measures as of recent. While we don't see them on the road too often, they do exist and are gaining a backing. While it may seem super cool to be able to hop in your car and never have to actually touch the wheel, it also brings up a multitude of possible issues.
You may be wondering what these issues are, considering they will be reducing the number of car crashes, reserving fuel and taking up less space in general. If these cars can truly drive themselves without constantly running into things, that means that they are communicating. Not only will your car be communicating with the environment around it, but it will also be communicating with the other cars on the road. For your car to communicate with another car means that there is a connection. You know what people can do with connections? Hack them.
The journalist Andy Greenburg wrote an article back in 2015 in which he described a terrifying realistic situation of his jeep being hacked while he was driving. While the entire scenario was planned out and Greenburg knew the "hackers," the situation itself was a possible reality. First, the hackers overtook the air controls, then they were able to change the radio and turn the windshield wipers on. The final move these hackers made was cutting the transmission. Maybe self driving cars are something that you dream of, or perhaps they are the stuff of nightmares. Personally, I think humans are just getting lazier. They are finding more ways to do less and less and are calling it "advancement."I don't think the future will by like the first picture, where everything is bright and shiny and new. However, I also don't think it will be like the second picture where all you can see is fire and smoke. The future is what we make it, and we have to stop ourselves from making it worse. Like the old saying goes, "the past repeats itself."
