Autonomous technologies for daily personal mobilities

Abstract

This article attempts to point to emerging future trends for personal mobilities, focusing on the current and upcoming uses of autonomous technologies for both physical and virtual mobilities. These uses will be based on electricity and the Internet, which also constitute mobility modes. The article presents first each of the four emerging mobility technologies: electric vehicles (EVs), mobile Internet, autonomous vehicles (AVs), and artificial intelligence (AI) via chatbots. This is followed by a discussion of habit changes in the adoption of the four new mobility technologies. The article then moves to discussions of individual, societal, and spatial implications of the two mobility autonomous technologies of AV and AI. For individuals, autonomous physical and virtual mobilities will both be typified by rather restricted roles and activities by users, such as passengers and text users respectively. At the social level autonomous mobility will have a major impact on education, both generally, requiring students to analyze texts rather than to author them, and professionally, with growing needs for computer experts rather than traditional garage workers. It is too early to assess some possible spatial impacts of chatbots, but AVs will imply several spatial implications, notably regarding the structure of urban streets and parking facilities.