When Your Car Decides to Turn You In
Glimpse of the future: “Why am I sitting in the parking lot of a government office while my editor is texting me about my column? It’s 2030—this shouldn’t be happening! I can’t open the doors. It just says: ‘Administrative lock.’”
When the Car Decides for You
It might sound like a distant possibility (and I hope it stays that way), but the idea that someday your car might say, “Confirmed—destination: Fast Company Mexico, Santa Fe,” and the moment the doors close it reroutes you with a message, “You’ve been redirected by state order to Government Office X”—isn’t just science fiction. Technically, it’s completely possible. So what’s stopping it?
Think about it: the more power and autonomy we give to AI systems, the more we need to be clear about our rights when we buy, license, or use them—whether in our personal lives or for business. Especially when there’s a very real chance that these systems could affect our lives, limit our freedom of movement, or even detain us. Remember: once you’re inside a self-driving car, the system is in charge. Not you. Let me explain.
Surrendering Our Autonomy to AI
Every time we roll out a powerful technology, we have to look at both the upside (which with AI is huge) and the potential consequences that come with chasing those positive outcomes. Cars, planes, ships, and subways are all safer today because of thoughtful regulations. In some cases, we got ahead of the problem from the beginning—like adding brakes. In others, it took decades—like mandatory seat belts, which didn’t become law in the U.S. until 1968 and in Mexico until 1985. Just for context: the first cars hit the road in 1886. Ninety-nine years is cutting it a little close for seat belts.
What makes AI-powered self-driving cars different from past technologies is the kind of control we’ll be handing over—especially control tied to our autonomy, like the ability to go where we want, when we want. Some vehicles may still include a steering wheel you can use to override the system (I hope), but others, like the newest Tesla Taxi, are being built with no steering wheel at all. That’s something worth thinking about as we decide what features we want—or don’t want—in our future cars.
Now, let me be clear: my issue isn’t with self-driving cars themselves, or the companies building them. I think they’re amazing, and they’d make it much easier for me to get work done between meetings in traffic-heavy cities (which seem to be the only ones I live in). The real issue is this: What rights do we have—nationally and legally—once we’re inside the car? For example, if you own the car, but it's regulated by national or local authorities, and someone in government wants to talk to you for whatever reason, should the car have the legal power to lock the doors and take you to them? I don’t think so. Maybe we should all start carrying those emergency glass-breaker tools—just in case?
Legal Challenges and Our Future
Or take a smaller scenario: What if you had an unpaid parking ticket or missed a tax deadline? Should the government have the power to disable your vehicle or force you to go resolve it on their schedule? These are real questions we’ll have to start asking soon. And we’ll all need to be involved in creating, supporting, and enforcing laws that protect our rights in any AI system with the ability to literally move us from place to place.
You might be thinking, “That would never happen to me—I’m not a criminal.” That’s exactly where things get tricky. You’re assuming the system flagging you isn’t itself powered by AI. And even if it is, you’re assuming it’s 100% accurate. Hate to break it to you—but no system is. Even if a system had a 99.99% accuracy rate, in a country like Mexico with 132,529,000 people, around 13,252 people a year would be wrongly flagged, detained, or delivered to a government office—every single year.
That’s why we need to start asking the right questions about autonomous vehicles:
What rights do passengers and owners of self-driving cars have in your country?
Could you override the car with a special phrase or biometric confirmation?
From the manufacturer’s settings, who has ultimate control of the car in every scenario? Could your control be taken away in any circumstance?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, send an email. Make a call. Get involved. Because the future’s being built right now—and you have a say.
It would be fair to say that this article is a little early. There aren’t fleets of self-driving cars on the streets of Mexico or most of Latin America just yet. But I’d argue it’s exactly the right time—because the work to secure our rights has to happen on a country-by-country basis. Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Spain—every country will need to pass its own laws to protect citizens in this new era of AI-powered vehicles. That process will take years. And it will only happen if people like you bring it to the attention of the elected officials and regulators who are juggling a million other priorities.
As we move toward an increasingly automated world, we need to stay alert to what could go wrong—not to panic, but to prepare. Only then can we build systems, regulations, and communities that serve us—not the other way around.
Originally published in Spanish for Fast Company Mexico:
https://fastcompany.mx/2024/10/31/auto-autonomo-decide-entregarte-autoridades/
