Before anyone other than a professional animator had heard of Apple™, I bought my first computer. I’m guessing it was around 1984. I had frequently attempted to defuse the need to have one. My argument was, or so I thought at the time, convincing. Having, as I did, a template for many of the forms I regularly employed in my business, it was only necessary to put the template through the Xerox photocopier, then type in the names of the parties. As for the production of multi-page documents such as wills and powers of attorney, we had IBM memory typewriters – the latest stenographic rage. And I could rely upon Dye & Durham and the government to produce a wealth of fill-in-the-blank forms for common usage in corporate and real estate documents.

Of course I ultimately succumbed to fashion. On a rainy Saturday afternoon I ventured into the city to investigate.  The salesman – a youngish man whom I instantly recognized as hung over – sold me the computer (curiously – and mistakenly of course – with two keyboards which he had piled into the trunk of my car with everything else). He told me, “Just plug it in and you’re ready to go!” This was asserted even before I understood the difference between hardware and software (the box of stuff labelled WordPerfect).

The initial period of computer ownership was disappointing. I had just spent $3,500 on a machine that did nothing. There was no one to rely upon but myself. It wasn’t as though there were others in a large firm with whom I might confer. Oddly however I was the first lawyer in Lanark County to have a computer (a small compliment that speaks to the resistance of lawyers to change). Soon each of my three assistants had her own computer. The bookkeeping had been translated from the One-write System to electronic, replacing burdensome words such as debit and credit with more distinguishable ones such as in and out. The dreary dot matrix printer was replaced with a speedy laser printer.

Now, these many years later – and in the interim having accommodated the transition from flip phones to smart phones, we’re on the threshold of another technological advancement affecting the masses – EVs (Electric Vehicles). Tesla – like Apple – has probably led the way into what is currently the most highly workable definition. But there persists all sorts of opposition. There are the standard moans about distance (as though most of us drives any more than 50 Kms/day), infrastructure (another curious argument for a continent already having electricity from coast to coast to coast), cost (proven to be obviated by government subsidies) and having to forego the traditional fun of gassing up regularly. The logic descends to the moderately persuasive visceral feature when employed to recall the “sound of the gears changing”, the “purr of the engine”, the sensation of incremental acceleration.

Three months ago I bought an EV. Having already conditioned myself irreversibly to 1-pedal driving, I haven’t any argument against the shift to electric.  My only reservation – and this would apply to any vehicle (gas or electric) – is that “Super Cruise” removes from me some of the small advantage I have to manipulate these incredible machines. That is, the “driving experience” is wistfully regarded when succumbing to autonomous driving. But this refinement is really part of the larger and broadening conspiracy of robots and assisted driving generally. And there is nothing at present mandatory about Super Cruise any more than there is when choosing to use “Cruise Control”. It does however signify an important ingredient of driving – and that is the sensation of having one’s own private device to operate.

While it is possible to advance the arguments in favour of EVs from a purely logical premise (such as clean air or sound pollution), the deduction becomes thorny when proceeding into the realm of personal ambition. And the predictable jump to robotic features is not without its investment peril. The Trump government has added its characteristic ambivalence to the evolution of electric vehicles with tariffs and exclusions on requisite computer imports from abroad. So, for an old fogey such as I, the periphery of human-controlled EVs is fairly assured. And I intend to make use of the opportunity to its fullest. No doubt whatever qualification I may conjecture regarding the utility of EVs (whether robotic or not) will become redundant in time.