Could It Happen? Another One Bytes The Dust

Computers used to be content to make pie charts, transmit e-mail, and help us share dirty pictures on the Internet. Suddenly, though, they seem to be taking over our cars. Is this a good thing?

Answering such a query has long been a favorite assignment of automakers. In the late 1950s, GM produced a short film that showed a family of the future taking off for a cross-country drive in their sleek, spaceshippy "Firebird II." The film shows the driver, before entering the highway, turning over the reigns of his car to an onboard computer that will do the driving for him. And just when did these filmmakers of the Fifties foresee such a future? Why, way out there in nineteen hundred and seventy six.

Of course, when that fateful year finally arrived, our roads were remarkably devoid of bubble-topped, computerized spaceships. Instead, what your average 1976 Flash Gordon was driving was a Ford Pinto--a car lacking any rocket exhausts but one that could, as you'll recall, be prompted to belch flames if tapped on its rear bumper.

Today, however, even the simple act of becoming blissfully lost behind the wheel is in danger of being outlawed. Onboard navigation systems, complete with HAL 9000-like voices, are now as common as unused turn signals. Take a wrong exit while under the care of one of these nav czars, and you'll quickly be chided with, "Execute a U-turn now!" or "You're really behaving like a carbon-based life form, bub!"

And don't think the HAL 9000 in your dash is content simply to yell at you. Oh, no--he wants to take the wheel. As early as 1996, the National Automated Highway System Consortium was investigating various proposals for an Automated Highway System (AHS)--special roads where computer-controlled "smart cars" would drive themselves with no input from the human at the helm. While such a system is, at best, 10 years away, it's no Jules Verne story. A prototype AHS has already been successfully tested on an eight-mile stretch of Interstate 15 north of San Diego.