From the May 2017 issue
If the dominant narrative holds and autonomous cars do colonize our roads, there will be no more mental calculations of time, distance, and speed. No best-guessing what that idiot in the left-turn lane will do instead of turning left. Not even any more weighing whether to grind your teeth, honk the horn, or flip the bird. Which doesn?t sound all bad. But will turning on an au­tono­mous vehicle turn off a driving mind" Will relinquishing control and responsibility make us dumber"
Intelligence means different things to different scientists. It?s not solely a question of whether or not self-driving cars will make us stupid, but which brain cells are threatened with dying off. Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is interested in the cognitive science of how human brains work. ?It?s certainly true that if people lead stimulating and complex lives, that influences the brain and influences mental development,? he explains. ?There?s research on the complexity of occupations, people who have more complex jobs with more complex demands, and how that affects their thinking and also how that affects their aging. In general, more complex jobs will lead to greater cognitive flexibility.? That extends to everyday tasks as well. So autonomous vehicles may allow us more time for contemplating the state of the universe, which would better hone the keenness of a human mind than ...