AI, drunk drivers and the “relaxed body theory”.

By Gonzalo López Martí  – www.LMMiami.com/ 

You might have heard the urban myth: drunk drivers tend to have a higher survival rate than sober ones in comparable accidents.

Poetic injustice.

It is sometimes deemed “the relaxed body theory”.

The explanation: an intoxicated individual is unaware of the imminence of a crash, so he or she doesn’t oppose resistance to the physical forces of impact.

Oddly enough, while this is indeed an urban myth, there is a modicum of truth to it.

Some studies seem to confirm it.

Now let’s extrapolate this premise to the AI bulldozer allegedly coming our way at breakneck speed.

What if bracing for impact actually increases the damage?

Should we just  let go and relax to ameliorate the collision?

Being malleable and adaptive to unexpected forces might be a better way to confront them.

If we attempt to “be ready” we will clench our jaws.

And our buttcheeks.

We will worsen the whiplash.

We might experience a better outcome if we just try and look at the whole thing in slow motion, as a so-called OBE (out-of-body experience).

Easier said then done, I know. *

So.

We have several possible courses of action ahead of us.

If we try and react, we will chase the problem from behind.

To use a soccer analogy: we will always be two seconds late to where the ball is in play.

Or let’s use a metaphor from another sport.

Wayne Gretzky, possibly the greatest ice hockey player of all time, allegedly said: “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”

This sounds great, but it requires an experience we simply do not have because the scenario coming our way is, allegedly, unprecededented.

That or some sort of clairvoyance.

My favorite line though, which is widely open for interpretation, was coined by another Canadian dude: the the late, great Marshall McLuhan.

“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future”.

 

* I digress: self-driving cars, which owe a lot of their autonomy and split-second decision-making prowess to AI, will substantially reduce traffic accidents. Allegedly.