Baby, you can drive my car

Using the topic of the self-driving car as a starting point, Waag and Hackers & Designers in collaboration with the Frascati 15:15 programme invited you to explore the changing role of technology in our civic society. In a series of events, we investigated what's behind the self-driving car; get acquainted with sensors; and discussed themes surrounding this topic with ethicists, technologists, artists, and policy makers.

Using technical and societal developments in and around the self-driving car, we engaged in a number of collective thought experiments challenging and critically reflecting on the relationship and dependencies between technological innovation and societal developments. How are the technologies we rely on constructed? What dilemmas do we encounter during the development of a self-driving vehicle? How much control should we cede to technology? What types of moral frameworks should we agree upon? These are some of the questions we, along with the audience, will grapple with and use to discuss alternatives to given solutions.

Technology, as a vastly influential force in our daily lives, shapes our interactions with public spaces and each other; with policy making; and contributes to our exclusion of parts of society. Developers and designers play a key role in shaping our cohabitation. Things like the public transport chip card, care robots, digital IDs, the self-driving car: their code determine our behaviour and the way we interact with each other. Are developments like these unstoppable? Uncontrollable? Let’s find out!