Do these two extreme images of self-driving cars evoke questions about the future?

These two drawings are representations of each end of the spectrum, of a possible and extreme future of self-driving cars. One is a dystopia of all negatives outcomes, possibilities and fears of a life filled with SDC. And another is a utopia of all the benefits SDC could have to offer for our world and people. My goal, by creating such extremes, was to get the audience to ponder about what they imagine the future to look like, and to spark curiosity about the future of AI.

Each scenario was compiled from the research I did by asking humans of New York about what their thoughts, benefits and fears were about self-driving cars.

Technology is exponentially growing and the concept of Artificial Intelligence is already being incorporated in many products today. Self-driving cars is evidence of companies trying to invent the new breakthrough in technology, and when successfully create, self-driving cars will change the world drastically. It’s easy to automatically think positively or negatively about SDC, so these two comparisons can show both perspectives and evoke new thoughts.

I want to include in this post each scenario in each drawing just in case not everything was caught. Dystopia: 1) Furthest car in the distance the passenger is complaining about the loss of freedom to choose the speed of the car. It was from answers I got from loss of freedom about speed and the choice of where you can go. 2) Taxi car on the left has two people scared to go inside because they are not sure if it will be safe. Adapted from interview feedback about reliability of self driving cars, and if the car will get hacked. 3) Car in the middle of the intersection is from answers about what if the self driving cars glitch in dangerous situations. 4) The man sitting on the grass, is the possibility of all car related jobs going out of business leaving millions of people unemployed. Taxi car on the left, taxi driver now out of business = man on the grass. 5) Angry man in the middle of the image, in the car, is the situation when the car does not exactly get your voice recognition or finger touch.

Utopia: 1) Furthest car in the distance is the possibility that people can then play games with their sibling, friends etc. so I chose the card game UNO, and having a person yelling UNO! 2) Car in the middle of the street with Z’s is from feedback that people would want to sleep more in their commute to work/school etc. 3) Car on the left is of a woman drinking so their would be no casualties of drinking and driving as well as people who want to drink but still go places. 4) the free man on the grass was from results of people saying SDC would open up more free time for them. 5) The kids in the car in the front of the drawing, was from answers from interviews about multitasking and needing more time to do work, or need time to call relatives, or need time to unplug in between school and work. So I adapted those answers to a girl on her phone texting her friends away/face timing, and a boy doing work/playing games.

Dystopia has dull colors(and red = danger) and a gloomy day = represents a bad future. Utopia has flowers blossoming, sunshine, bright colors, birds and the color green for successful.

These are my first sketches of when my idea took on from 1 final image to two images. I was not sure at the beginning if I wanted the utopia and dystopia to be from the same angle on the streets, so the second half of the paper is the possible utopia future from birds eye view, where the top half was the dystopia view from the inside of a car.

This was when I developed my ideas on perspective and view point of the two images to be from the same angle. Dystopia upper sketch, and utopia lower sketch. Both have notes showing my thinking process of where I wanted which situation (that I conducted through my interviews and research) in the streets.

This was my one dystopia image I brought into class for feedback. I did not have my colors in yet which was a comment I got that said it would definitely help show the contrast between utopia and dystopia better, which I agreed with. Also my peer’s comment was that the text was too small, so I was sure to make it readable in the final outcome. Another note was that the character that looked too much like cartoon Phinneas would distract from the actual concept/moral of the image so I was sure to make all characters not associated with tv shows so the focus was mainly on the point behind the scenes. Also, it wasn’t clear to everyone that the ‘Phinneas’ was sitting and that his board was in fact a cardboard sign, so I made it more visible in the final. Lastly, another change I made was that the inside of the car needed more elements of a car, so I changed it to have glove compartments and changed buttons to a touch screen to give more of a ‘futuristic’ feel.

Throughout the entire process of my final project I changed and adapted a lot of my ideas. The main change that I noticed was how the final image/s turned out. From the beginning I imagined my final to be one drawing done on photoshop of a future of self driving cars (SDC), and my point and RQ was to give the answer of what it could be like. I imagined before interviewing people of New York about the topic, they would generally think SDC would be positive, but throughout my interviews with people and investigation, I realized a lot of people had such different takes and a lot of negative outlooks on the possibility. This changed my perspective on what my final should look like. Since I got a lot of feedback, I wanted to categorize it into two drawings of all positive ideas of SDC and negative scenarios of SDC. Then I thought about the scene which all these scenarios take place, and that is when I decided if I were to make a ‘all good’ outcome and ‘all bad outcome’ why not make them extreme futures? So that is how I incorporated the utopia and dystopia ideas. With this idea of creating two versions of extremes, I instead of giving the answer, I wanted the audience to question the piece. Or more like allow the paintings to evoke questions within themselves about what they imagine the future to be like. This was where I decided I wanted my final to be intellectually interactive, and needed time to think and analyze the piece, rather than bluntly giving away the answer.

Throughout this process, I was also experimenting with drawing on photoshop, but soon realized I liked the freehand drawing/style I did with a pen and paper. So I decided I would do the whole thing on paper. After I finished the black and white version, I realized it will be more effective and powerful to scan it, and photoshop the colors in and get a vibrant, powerful and variety of colors. So in the end I used both, instead of just one material. And as I mentioned earlier, with my sketches, is how I took in and developed my piece after the helpful critique I got from my peers.