jalopnik.com: Walt Disney once mused that it’s “kind of fun to do the impossible,” so it’s likely the animation mogul would’ve been impressed by last year’s reports that fully-autonomous vehicles could soon be shuttling passengers around the amusement park in Florida that bears his name. Driverless cars are, after all, one of the most challenging—impossible, perhaps—technological tasks of our time.
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I would be more surprised that I had not heard of Disney’s goal to launch autonomous shuttles, had it not been for the nastiness and confusion of these lawsuits. It’s understandable that Disney would not want to associate with such a convoluted mess. Disney’s reputation is so far on the opposite end of the spectrum it has no place among it. Even within the article, Disney only seems the poor unfortunate client that got slighted by the harshness of competition in the world of cutting edge technology. This makes sense, given Disney was not building or creating only hiring these companies, but I wonder if they truly were so detached from the project. I’m also kind of surprised that Disney was so ready to use autonomous vehicles. While we’ve moved beyond the phase of overwhelming skepticism, there are still many grey areas regarding possible accidents that I’m surprised Disney would risk entangling themselves.
Though I don’t have to much prior knowledge into the politics of self driving cars, I still found Ryan Felton's article about “How a Deal to bring Autonomous Vehicles to Walt Disney World Blew Up”. Politics surrounding explosive lawsuits carrying accusations of trade secrets theft between opposing companies all trying to deploy self driving cars to the public. Ryan Felton’s article dives into the most recent feud between Disney and multiple companies. Concerns arrived after disney announces driverless shuttles, specifically between Meridian and Phoenix, two companies involved in the self driving tech. Since this project is so lucrative, Meridian and Phoenix Wings both wanted apart of it, ending in suits made about attempted hijacking of intellectual property. I’m glad to hear Disney still plans to move forward and introduce self driving shuttles at their parks, but they no longer know when and if it can happen, or if they can do it the way they planned originally. I hope to hear more about the situation and perhaps an outcome in the future.
I did a lot of research on autonomous vehicles in high school and coming from a knowledgeable perspective on the topic – I see no point in Disney needing autonomous shuttles. Autonomous cars come with many benefits for families, such as accessibility regardless of age, gaining more free time as opposed to having to drive, and safety. If I remember the statistic correctly, around 94% of car accidents are at the fault of human error, and scientists believe autonomous vehicles could make the roads MUCH safer. The battle over them, however, is the lack of human thought and emotion in certain dangerous circumstances. Many people do not trust programmers to be able to come up with a way to tell the cars what the best choice would be in every different circumstance, and fear that autonomous cars could lead to their death. In the case of autonomous shuttles at Disney, there are literally no benefits. They would be cutting down on jobs, which the economy needs, and putting hundreds of people at a time on vehicles they do not necessarily have full control over – ultimately putting parkgoers safety at risk – just coming to and from the parking lot. This article described all of the legal action that has been a problem over Disney trying to bring autonomous shuttles into their parks, but I just don’t think all of the lawsuits are even worth it when there is literally no good point in having them in the first place.
Obviously, driverless cars are going to be the next breakthrough in transportation and whatever company cracks this problem will make a ton of money. It doesn't surprise me that Disney is pushing to find a way to integrate this tech into their parks. There are some ethical concerns but I think the ones about ousting people from entry-level a lot more compelling than the trolley problem-like conundrums about crashing/killing people. I think this comes from a deep-seated denial about how unreasonably dangerous driving is. It is truly bonkers that we do it every day. Driverless cars will save so many lives on average that I find those theoretical scenarios completely uninteresting because what would every single of those scenarios be with the addition of a human? Statistically, worse.
It is always interesting to me that Disney is always at the forefront of innovation in technology and also how often they should up in the laws that regulate the entertainment industry. As we all know, the copyright laws in this country will likely be changing again in 2023 because Mickey Mouse will about to enter the public domain. Disney is such a driver of our society that several articles have been written on the "Disneyfication" of America. I think its fascinating that the company that is able to explore these new ideas is a company most well-known for producing children's movies.
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