I just finished reading David Owen’s book ‘The Conundrum’ which is a exploration of unintended consequences and macroeconomic effects of Jevon’s Paradox. It’s too long for me to properly summarize right now, but he makes what seemed to me strong arguments that: there are many situations where efficiency gains open up technology frontiers which lead to more consumption (transistors were not just “much more efficient vacuum tubes”); and that automobile consumption has been one of the most damaging technologies of the 20th century, leading to vast sprawl in N America, with all it’s environmental issues.
Certainly it’s possible that automated cars may have their own frontier effect (decentralized fleets of micro cars allowing people to more easily live in dense urban areas?) but a very obvious effect of auto-autos is that they’ll basically be “cheaper” to own in many ways, which means there will be more of them consumed and potentially a lot more environmental impact from them.
I think the argument that robo-cars represents a test bed for dealing with widespread automation is a pretty interesting one, but it’s not clear at all to me that robotic cars are a technology that, on balance is going to make things better in the short/medium term.
Anyway, you’ll probably find The Conundrum interesting. I found it via Russ Robert’s excellent Econtalk podcast, where he had a discussion with Owen a couple of years ago
I just finished reading David Owen’s book ‘The Conundrum’ which is a exploration of unintended consequences and macroeconomic effects of Jevon’s Paradox. It’s too long for me to properly summarize right now, but he makes what seemed to me strong arguments that: there are many situations where efficiency gains open up technology frontiers which lead to more consumption (transistors were not just “much more efficient vacuum tubes”); and that automobile consumption has been one of the most damaging technologies of the 20th century, leading to vast sprawl in N America, with all it’s environmental issues.
Certainly it’s possible that automated cars may have their own frontier effect (decentralized fleets of micro cars allowing people to more easily live in dense urban areas?) but a very obvious effect of auto-autos is that they’ll basically be “cheaper” to own in many ways, which means there will be more of them consumed and potentially a lot more environmental impact from them.
I think the argument that robo-cars represents a test bed for dealing with widespread automation is a pretty interesting one, but it’s not clear at all to me that robotic cars are a technology that, on balance is going to make things better in the short/medium term.
Anyway, you’ll probably find The Conundrum interesting. I found it via Russ Robert’s excellent Econtalk podcast, where he had a discussion with Owen a couple of years ago