How Self-Driving Supercars Could Actually Harm the Industry

There are cars, and then there are supercars. These masterpieces of automotive design and engineering put an exclamation mark on what luxury is. But technology doesn’t always improve things, sometimes it can make things worse. There exists a chasm between the effects of artificial intelligence on the automotive industry.

Would you let a machine take over the task of driving? Would you trust it enough to relinquish your control and to put your life and that of your companions in the hands of a computer?

There’s no doubt that developers will eventually be able to tweak self-driving technology to make it a true alternative to driving the car yourself, and it might even completely eliminate the factor of human error in car accidents, but is this what we truly want? And would it be fair to force this technological change upon everyone? We all buy cars for different reasons, and depending on those reasons, the shift toward self-driving cars may or may not outright kill the industry of supercars.

Why Do People Buy Supercars?

The reasons people buy cars vary, but they are much more narrow once we start talking about supercars. You simply have to look at what you get from supercars that you can’t find with regular cars – increased performance, impeccable style and design, and of course, the comfort and status that comes with supercar ownership.

While most of these things aren’t diminished when you introduce artificial intelligence into a supercar, is there truly a point in owning a supercar if you can’t drive it yourself? A major part of the experience is, after all, geared toward giving an unparalleled driving experience. Imagine buying an expensive supercar, and getting an Allstate car insurance or any insurance policy for it, only to realize that you can’t drive your car.

So, How Exactly Should AI Be Integrated Into Supercars?

The answer is rather simple. Supercars are high-performance machines. The people who buy these cars often do not have professional experience that would allow them to handle the power and speed of these cars in a controlled manner.

A self-driving supercar should have the option to switch between manual and ai-driven mode wherein the latter mode is meant to show the driver the best ways to handle the car and its powerful components. A lot of a supercar’s capabilities are wasted on unskilled drivers and let’s face the hard fact that there are a lot of accidents that involve supercars and drivers who simply didn’t understand how to control their car properly.

An artificial intelligence can help better train the owners of supercars to understand how to drive their cars better, whether it’s on the track where an AI can show a driver the best ways to handle curves on a track and on the road where an AI can help a driver take better control of his vehicle.

Technological development is very much like a river current. It will eventually take us in whichever direction it is headed. And because the change is inevitable, we might as well learn how to best ride the current.