"Jaywalking: How the car industry outlawed crossing the road," BBC (2014)
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26073797

Why post this now? A couple years ago I tried to get people to read Andy Crouch's book The Life We're Looking For. He argues (among many things) that every technology has a promise that is used to sell it, but it always implies an obligation that comes with it.

For every, "Now you won't have to" there is a "Now you won't be able to" attached to it.

The shift from "You don't have to walk down the street" became "You are not allowed to walk down the street" almost overnight as the result of campaigns from car companies.

"Now you can answer your email from anywhere" quickly became "Now you must answer your email from everywhere" for many workers.

Anyway, so Cory Doctorow brings this up when thinking of AI - what forms of "jaywalking" will AI bring to us?

Jaywalking, here, means, "a crime that invented in order to make the world safe for a new technology."

The first "jaywalking" that comes to mind is that teachers will not be allowed to grade students based on term papers written at home. That one seems obvious.

But I wonder what other forms of "jaywalking" are being quietly thought up.

Jaywalking Is a New York Tradition. Now It's Legal, Too. - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/nyregion/jaywalking-legal-law-nyc.html