What if Auto told you that by 2021, society will have fully autonomous vehicles? Today, autonomous vehicles can:

• Park themselves
• Serve as ride hailing services
• Avoid collisions in traffic
• Maintain lane and merge

What is Auto?

Auto is an interactive, multimedia experience designed to immerse users in a personalized narrative about their futures with fully autonomous vehicles. Because transportation doesn’t just impact how individuals get from place to place — it shapes what those places look like and the lives of everyday people.

The Problem + Solution

The problem with self-driving cars today is that no one knows for sure what society’s future will look like, and it can be hard to imagine. Luckily, that’s where Auto comes in. Auto can’t give a 100% accurate prediction of the future with fully autonomous vehicles, however, it can give its users a fun, interactive opportunity to see what society and their personal lives might look like in the future with fully self-driving cars, rather than merely a large-scale prediction of societal changes.

The Tech + Features

The first thing Auto does is present a form with personal questions to users. By using Javascript, Auto takes the user’s responses and generates a customized multimedia experience of their future with autonomous vehicles. Based on the scores assigned to each variable that they choose, a custom experience is given to the user, enabling a unique multi-platform immersion for every user. The experience includes multimedia content such as photos, videos and audio to let the future of autonomous vehicles unfold in front of the user as well. At the end of the experience, the user has the opportunity to share their personal experience on social media for a wider audience to view and try out for themselves.

The Impact

Auto’s hope is for its users to be aware that a future with fully autonomous vehicles is on the horizon. Auto wants its users to experience that future now and share it with others so that they will know how far society has come with technology and innovation — and how far it will go.

The Lessons + Road Ahead

Will future teenagers still want to get their licenses at 16? Will people subscribe to self-driving services just like they do now with music streaming services? Will there be more parks and fewer parking lots? During the execution of this project, team Auto has come to learn that individuals can’t merely ask what an autonomous car in 2021 will look like on the inside, but what changes this technology will create in the world and people’s everyday lives. Our hope is for Auto’s imagination of the future to serve as a forecast of what the actual future of transportation will look like on a personal and societal level.