Questioning Ubicomp: a car that can't crash

Anne quotes from Questioning ubiquitous computing by Araya (1995):

Thus, the thinking underlying Ubiquitous Computing exhibits a highly unreflective submission to the powers of technology - which to some extent echoes a similar unreflection predominant in the community at large - by taking for granted that the unfolding of technology does not require any justification outside of itself.

It appears then, that in the name of 'enhancing the world' the proposals for Ubiquitous Computing constitute an attempt at a violent technological penetration of everyday life. For how else could we characterize a proposal that advocates the pervasive transformation of things into surveillable objects, the substitution of 'real world' situations by digital surrogates, and the transformation of our surroundings into responsive artifacts by massively populating them with micro-processors and related devices - all of these transformations being mainly driven by technology itself?"

Technology because we can. Case in point:

Gates and Bill Ford Jr., Ford's chairman and chief executive, said high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment with directions and road conditions will set car companies apart from their competitors.

Eventually, Gates said, there could be a car that wouldn't let itself crash.

"That absolutely should be the goal," Gates told several hundred participants of the Microsoft Global Automotive Summit at the automaker's suburban Detroit campus. "The embrace of technology will be the key for the leaders of the industry." [my bold]

To return to quoting from Araya:

Taking into account the primacy given to technology over needs, the proposed massive penetration of everyday life by a particular kind of technology, the attempt to immerse the technology into the background partially as a way to bypass resistance to the technology [my bold], and the fact that these developments are not questioned but regarded as absolute, we characterize the thinking underlying Ubiquitous Computing as an emerging form of technological absolutism...

It's no surprise that Gates wants Microsoft software in every Ford produced in the US (and possibly the world) - it's a logical extension of their early 90s goal of a computer on every desk and their 00s goal of a computer in every lounge room. The relevant thing is that Gates (and Bill Ford Jr.) assume that more technology in cars is a Good Thing (tm). (They seem to have forgotten the, classic, IMO, joke about GM and Microsoft)

As I have found in my research, the two Bills are treating technology as a solution. Technology isn't a solution, it's a tool. A tool that brings it's own values, problems and chains-of-events. Even sub-technologies like "high-definition screens, speech recognition technology, cameras, digital calendars and navigation equipment" aren't solutions - they're tools (or tool-kits). Careful consideration of the problem at hand is required before you can even decide on what tool to use - and often when you consider the problem at hand you figure out that you need a different tool to do a different job in a different place than when you first approached the problem.