Governing Motors: Big Brother, HAL and what clearly comes next

by AdFool | June 18, 2010 at 12:12 pm

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Nobody likes bad guys. Even bad guys don’t like bad guys. The reason is that no one actually thinks they’re a bad guy. Do you think serial killers look at the face in the mirror (theirs, not the one they just carved off someone) and see a monster? No way. We’re all pretty much agreed that the bad guy also happens to be the “other guy.” Nice how that works.

So it is with a mixture of awe and dismay that I watch the ever-present GM OnStar commercials. Deftly showing off their whiz-bang technology, these GM ads feature an energetically helpful operator (located God-knows-where) unlock car doors in Des Moines or call for help during accidents. They’re great sales pitches but the most recent one struck a note I found hard to ignore.

The ad starts off pretty well. We have the all-too familiar POV of a police car dash-cam (thanks to years of shirtless drunks and their inadvertent audition for “Cops” fame) driving down the road. Suddenly, a message breaks across the radio. “This is OnStar reporting a stolen blue Chevy Tahoe…” The voice gives the when and where and our officer is on it, U-turning mid-street and roaring off. It’s now hot pursuit, cruising the freeway as we alternate between the OJ Simpson chase-cam shot and the aforementioned dash cam shot as the fugitive SUV is quickly spotted. All the while we are seeing OnStar in action. The chase intensifies.

Soon, the officer thinks he may have the car in sight. OnStar’s trained operator offers to confirm it by “flashing the lights” – she does, and it does. Wow…. The cop now knows for sure they have the right vehicle. And just when you think the chase is about to get movie crazy we see a title card cover the screen saying “OnStar can help stop deadly chases.” Immediately the OnStar operator sends a signal to cut the SUV’s power and the stolen Tahoe slows to a stop, guided almost effortlessly by the unseen digital hand of GM’s OnStar overlord. Local law enforcement swings into action and the closing title card appears – “Stolen vehicle slowdown: only from OnStar.” Talk about a brave new world. Somebody’s watching, monitoring and controlling me, you and everything else in sight.

It seems like a great idea. At least it does to me. I mean when I think about my car being ripped off it’s awesome to think that some chuckwad laughing his head off will inevitably see the ignition quit and his new career choice popped short by on-the-scene cops. And what if there were kids in the car? Even more so. Who wouldn’t love the idea of protection from above? There is a reason this God business works as well as it does. But what if it’s you inside that car being pulled over? What if you’re the target in the chase? What if you’re the “bad guy?”

As much the idea of not being able to lock one’s keys in the car or never being fully alone on the road again seems great I personally have an incredibly intense dislike of being under someone else’s thumb 24-7. Driving used to denote freedom. There’s nothing free about a car that can be unlocked from thousands of miles away or manipulated on the road by some unseen, unelected agent. It’s like HAL from 2001:A Space Odyssey got a new job at GM. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Dave? That McDonald’s food will only make you fat, Dave. Let’s skip drive-thru, Dave, it’s for the best, Dave.” If they can stop crooks from stealing cars is it that much of a stretch to dump monkey wrenches into everything else we do?

Look how easy it is these days to become an enemy of the state. Smoking, cell phones, trans-fats, carbon emissions, Rush Limbaugh. You do know who owns GM, right? “You’ve been burning a little too much fuel, Dave. There’s a crisis in the Gulf, Dave. Maybe you should stop wasting gas, Dave. Go home, Dave. I said NOW, Dave!” At what point do the mechanisms we create to protect us become prisons we can no longer escape? Right now it’s our choice to buy OnStar. What happens when it isn’t? The cool factor of OnStar slips away pretty fast when you realize the same technology that can stop carjackers could also run you top-speed into an underpass. You better hope you’re always the good guy, because eventually governments change and today’s good guys can instantly become very bad indeed. I think I’m gonna start walking a bit more, just in case.