Reality Check: Honk, Honk!

Did you hear the story about the driverless cars that got into an argument in a parking lot and kept honking at each other? Funny story! Funny, that is, unless you live in the neighbourhood and don’t enjoy a 4AM wakeup call.
The story stands out for me because of the impersonal nature of the problem. One of the neighbours said, “There’s no one for me to go down there and have a conversation with….That’s the most frustrating thing; you’re just yelling into the void.”
When we speak to a human, even if they are blowing their horn at the time, we can at least draw satisfaction from having made our case.
Someone has heard us. They may not agree; nothing may change, but we’ve said our piece.
We come into contact with all kinds of automated processes. We register at unmanned kiosks; we shop at self-checkouts; we get information by pressing numbers on the phone. Many of the day-to-day tasks that used to involve contact and conversation with people are now completely people-free.
There are benefits as well as downsides to these changes. Some things improve; new problems arise. Seldom does change come without tradeoffs.
Apparently, the driverless car honking was caused by a software problem. Maybe the software says, “If there’s a car in front of me, then honk till it moves.” However, if both cars are programmed with the same instruction, what happens? They both honk. No one moves. Oh dear.
Now that sounds like a simple, fixable problem that the designer should have foreseen, doesn’t it? (As an aside, other people’s problems often seem foreseeable and fixable, unlike our own. But I digress.)
Unlike the cars, we are not compelled by internal “software” to act in a certain way. However, we do often react automatically.
For example, the phone rings. What do we do? Answer it, of course. Our automatic ringing phone response is one of the examples that Dr. Glasser used to demonstrate that while we may think we are controlled by external forces; in fact, we can choose.
Do you always answer the phone when it rings? What if you are engaged in something interesting? What if you don’t want to talk to the person you think is calling? What if your head hurts and you just don’t feel like talking? We don’t always want to admit it, but even in this tiny decision, we have choices. We don’t have to answer the phone.
We can think of our automatic responses as short-cuts; they help us get through our lives efficiently, without having to think too much. We automatically stop at a red light, say hello to people we know, smile at a puppy in the hardware store.
Do we have other automatic responses? Our interactions are sometimes more like driverless cars than we’d like to admit. For example, let’s say that I believe that you have insulted me. I get angry! Honk! Now, my “software” tells me to insult you back! Honk, honk! On we go, honking and honking at each other. The original comment might not have been intended to be insulting, but it’s too late to recover now.
The cars don’t have ears, they only have horns. They can’t choose their responses; they must do what their software tells them. But we are not machines. We don’t have to respond automatically. We can make choices. It’s a wonderful thing.
Do you make use of your freedom to choose?

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