The Dual Nature of Technological Influence: From Angelic Nudges to Devilish Workarounds
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You almost certainly already rely on technology to help you be a moral, responsible human being. From old-fashioned tech like alarm clocks and calendars to new-fangled diet trackers or mindfulness apps, our devices nudge us to show up to work on time, eat healthy, and do the right thing. But it’s nearly impossible to create a technological angel on your right shoulder without also building in a workaround that is vulnerable to the devil on your left. Put another way: Any alarm clock user who denies that he has heard the siren song of the snooze button is lying. Technology can help us make good decisions, but outsourcing good decision-making to technology, tech companies or the government isn’t just a bad idea — it’s impossible. The family of a girl who was killed when the car she was in was rear-ended by a driver using his iPhone’sFacetime app has sued not only the driver, but also Apple. The family says iPhones should disable video and other distracting apps when they are being used by a driver.
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People already know that distracted driving is dangerous. They tell pollsters so all the time. Because of this clear customer demand, smartphone makers offer safety conscious drivers a variety of ways to minimize distraction, from handsfree headsets and voice command to mute buttons and airplane mode. But automatically disabling certain apps in a fast-moving vehicle — as the grieving family of 5-year-old distracted driving victim MoriahModisette is suing to force Apple to do — won’t work. One of the great glories of the smartphone era is the ability to work, chat and read while on mass transit or riding shotgun, so there’s no way to build an accelerometer-based shut-down unless you also add an opt-out. And if there's an opt-out, then fallible, foolish humans will always use it to thwart the original intent.
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What’s more, legally mandated technological fixes tend to be even less effective than their market-driven counterparts: Think of the Are You 18?queries that pop up on sites peddling liquor, cigarettes or other adult products. Judges and regulators consistently overvalue their ability to prevent catastrophe and undervalue the costs they impose on innocent users. The most wide-reaching effect of any kind of mandatory distracted driving safety provision will simply be to force every user of every smartphone, on every bus, train and plane to click “I am not the driver” every day unto eternity, without actually dissuading the kind of jerks who are determined to FaceTime while driving down the interstate.
