One of the major benefits of our self-driving future is just how much more gosh-darn productive we're all going to be. Instead of wasting brain power driving our cars to work, we'll sit back and let the ride do it for us. Suddenly, that time can be harnessed for our leisure or, more likely, to cram even more work into our days. But what will happen to all the people like me, who get sick at the thought of sitting in a car?
I'm not much of a car guy, because when I think about cars, my overriding memory is vomiting on the side of the highway. That smell of an overwarm car interior, heated by the air blowers turned up too high, makes me retch even to this day. In fact, even now, I can only avoid travel sickness by driving myself, with the aircon turned down low while chewing strong, mint-flavored gum.
So there's a slightly selfish motive in visiting Ansible Motion, an automotive engineering company that claims to have the world's most accurate car simulator. Most sims are built to train drivers, or for fun, but this one is intended for car designers to help them build new cars. Engineers can sketch out a new vehicle, plug the vital statistics into Ansible's platform and test drive it straight away.