I recently learned that Apple is thinking of creating a new car. With all the computer components which are embedded in today’s motor vehicles, I guess it was just a matter of time. Now, be clear, I am generally quite content with my iPhone, iPod, and iPad, but I don’t think I am far off the mark in saying that these devices sometimes display some rather idiosyncratic behavior. That started me thinking about what might happen if computer companies as a species started to manufacture motor vehicles.
Certainly, there may be some grand advantages enjoyed by the public when computer companies design and manufacture cars. Car repair costs will likely plummet because instead of expensive diagnostic work and part replacement, one will simply have to turn off the vehicle, leave it for a minute, and then re-start it. As far as I can tell, that is the cure for almost anything which might ail a computer. Turn it off and re-boot it (but not literally, as tempting as that may be, and as much as the evil device may deserve it for sending to cosmic oblivion one’s cherished work product of several hours). While flat tires and oil changes likely will still require a more traditional response, all the rest of the things which cause odd looking (but angst creating) graphics to light up on a car’s instrument panel will be resolved by the closest thing to a miracle cure ever discovered by our civilization: the re-boot. And when we are asked why simply turning off the machine and then restarting it acts as a magic poultice, we will give the same answer as we have heard it from all IT experts since the time when the phrase “floppy disk” was no more than a rude comment: “I don’t know, it just works.”
For the longest time, I thought that those learned IT experts were simply brushing me off because they knew I would never be able to understand the intricacies of the explanation. Now, I know better. They really don’t know why it works, though, in fairness, I must concede that they are correct that, if they did know, I wouldn’t be able to understand it.
It is said that Einstein defined “insanity” as the doing of the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. In this age of computers, that would seem no longer to be a universal truth. The identical sequence of key strokes which I have executed dozens of times before in order to achieve a certain result, will, suddenly, and for no reason known in our universe, fail to produce the expected result. Rather than being whisked to the desired location on the internet, or to the file I carefully saved the previous day, I am faced on the screen with some coloured ball which spins and spins in place for a time period which, in a pinch, would constitute a passable imitation of eternity. Today, “insanity” is defined as expecting the computer gods to react the same way each time a prescribed ritual is identically repeated. I will find it more than a little disconcerting if depressing the brake pedal on my Computer Car does not consistently result in a reduction in my speed; the day it results instead in the perpetual activation of my left turn signal may give new meaning to the term “computer crash”.
Finally, I cannot help but wonder if the vehicles designed and manufactured by those who brought us computers will also be subject to the computer world’s finest contribution to the insecurity of modern civilization: sporadic, random, and inexplicable “freezing”. Currently, a good block heater will usually prevent a vehicle from freezing. However, my computer experience tells me that with a Computer Car “freezing” will mean that the vehicle will capriciously, and at diverse and sundry times, no longer respond to input signals from the operator. I simply observe that a computer which freezes as one is travelling the internet highway is frustrating; a vehicle which freezes as one is motoring along on a major thoroughfare will likely get “booted” in a way never dreamt of by those toiling away in the Silicon Valley coven.
The Honourable Judge A.A. Fradsham is a Provincial Court Judge with the Criminal Court in Calgary. His column "A View From the Bench" has been a highlight in Canadian Bar Association newsletters for over 15 years.