Driving and Agency
I learned how to drive at 15. The car was a maroon Nissan Stanza with a manual transmission – a “stick,” as we called them in those days. I drove a stick in one car or another for about 20 years until a decade ago when I switched to an automatic transmission.
These days, it’s harder to find a stick. According to kbb.com, only about 1.7% of vehicles sold in 2023 in the U. S. have come equipped with one. Things are different in other countries. In Brazil, for example, most rental cars have a manual transmission, and if I’m there, I have no trouble finding a car I can drive.
I was car shopping a few days ago and drove a 2023 Honda Civic SI with a stick. Nice ride. I mentioned that I’d like to buy a car with a manual.
“I miss driving a stick,” I said. “Why would you want a stick these days?” someone asked. “The automatics do everything for you!” “Precisely,” I replied. “I want more agency, not less.”
You can guess whether or not I’d be inclined to buy a ‘self-driving car.’[1]
[1] I used single quotation marks for ‘self-driving car’ because no car is a literal self, not even an AI-enhanced car. A car is a thing, not a person. We refer to a car using the pronoun ‘it.’ Perhaps ‘itself-driving car’ is better.
Still, there are problems. Does a car operated by AI have a driver in the sense of an agent who operates the vehicle? Is it not merely being moved passively by sophisticated computer programming? Perhaps ‘driverless car’ is better.
Or how about elaúnōstat? (From the Greek ‘elaúnō’ [to drive, to set in motion] and ‘-stat’ [a stabilizing device]). Compare thermostat.