Visions of the Road Ahead: Experimenting with Future Visions of Self-Driving Cars

Vision is central to the future of autonomous vehicles (AVs). To accurately see and sense the road and its environment is arguably the principal challenge for engineers, designers, and computer scientists tasked with bringing the dream of self-driving cars and other AVs to life. For companies like Google and Tesla, crafting corporate and promotional visions is key to the acceptance and adoption of new and emerging technologies. But who gets to envision our futures? And how can we have our say in who gets to come along for the ride? Join the Emerging Technologies Research Lab in this hands-on creative workshop where participants will have the chance to engage and experiment with different visions of the future for AVs in Australia.

From the corporate visions put forward by Big Tech, to the speculative visions imagined in sci-fi and popular culture, participants will have the opportunity to interrogate and dissect the social, cultural, and political aspects of these proposed futures.

Participants will be presented with magazines, posters, and other visual materials, and then invited to cut apart and piece together using collage methods your own visions for automated mobilities in Australia.

This event is part of a research project titled ‘Future Automated Mobilities’ (Monash University Ethics Project ID: 29478), supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society. The Future Automated Mobilities project falls under the Transport & Mobilities focus area and is led by researchers in the People programme within the Centre.