The SVA Products of Design graduate program is a multidisciplinary design school where students select a topic and create a series of design provocations. These explorations span graphic design, industrial design, screen-based design, brand design, experience design, and more. My thesis topic was autonomous cars, which, in 2018, appeared to be the next breakthrough innovation.

The objective was not to address the technical implementation of autonomous cars, but to envision their societal impact. This vision served as a foundation for proposing interventions that could mitigate negative outcomes and amplify positive ones.

For example, autonomous cars might liberate suburban children from relying on their parents for transportation, freeing parents from becoming de facto chauffeurs. However, this same liberation might strain the fabric of family life. My thesis explored how design could ensure positive social outcomes while avoiding potential pitfalls.

Subtitled Intentional Community and Responsible Autonomy in the New Motor Age, the work addressed this question through several key projects:

• Say Hello to Ava: A public experience where participants test-drove an autonomous car, only to discover the vehicle had the persona of a precocious five-year-old, voiced by a hired actress.
• Serendipity: An app that encourages people traveling in autonomous cars to meet at local destination.
• The Rapid Ideation Lab: A participatory design workshop that invited participants to design purpose-built autonomous cars.
• HammurabAI: A digital service enabling passengers to choose how autonomous vehicles respond to life-or-death moral dilemmas on the road.
• Promenade: A service where businesses subsidize autonomous vehicle transport for customers in exchange for their patronage.

You can read the print edition of You are on the Fastest Route here.