Full Self Thriving

Learning to let go at 85 miles an hour.

I wasn’t tired. There was no traffic. I didn’t have a work call I needed to focus on. But as I merged onto Interstate 5 heading home after a comedy show with an old friend, I tapped the blue button: Start Self Driving.

Over the next 25 minutes, I had a mini dark night of the soul.

I’ve been using various forms of AI-powered driving since 2017, when we got our first Model S. I used the early versions of self-driving for short stretches of a 6-hour drive that I used to do once a month or so. Back then, it was super-glitchy and very much not relaxing. But it was clearly the future. Nowadays, at least here in Southern California, that future is very present.

After a few minutes, I thought to myself: I should take over.

Not because it was doing anything wrong. Not because I was scared. Not even because I was bored. It’s actually fascinating to watch what decisions the AI makes and when. But because I felt I should. I mean, I’m the human here, right? I should drive at some point.

If I don’t, then... what is my value here? Am I really just a passenger?

For some folks, especially younger than my 53-year-old self, maybe it would’ve been nothing. But for me, it’s a big deal.

When I was 16, I convinced my parents to let me pretend I was living at my grandparents’ house in Florida so I could get a driver’s license a year early. I loved driving. I love cars. Anything with a motor. Remote-controlled cars, my grandmother’s golf cart, dune buggies, go-karts. If it had a motor and I could control it, I wanted to.

When I bought my first car with money from my first job, a lightly used 1987 Acura Integra, I was in heaven. I was free. I could go anywhere. And somehow, I miraculously didn’t kill myself or anyone else in those first few years, because my right foot was more than a little heavy.

But anyway. Here I am on the freeway, and my identity is being called into question. By a computer.

And then it hit me.

I realized what was undeniably true, and mind you, this has not been true up until the most recent updates. When it comes to driving, and the most important part of it, driving safely, this computer is … better than me.

It just is.

It’s more attentive. It sees more with its cameras. At one point, it saw that a quarter mile up the highway the left two lanes were closed. I hadn’t seen it yet, and it started merging over. Did it perfectly. Then confidently headed back out into the left lane to resume cruising along at 85 mph as soon as the pylons cleared.

It took me home. Parked in my driveway. Did everything but tuck me in for the night.

And I can’t deny it anymore.

It’s just better than me.

Let me put this plainly: When it comes to driving, anytime from this moment forward that I choose to drive instead of letting it drive is me choosing the more risky option.

I’m not saying I won’t do it. But let’s be perfectly clear about reality here.

As you’re already realizing, this has nothing to do with driverless cars or any particular car company.

It has to do with the real reality, not the hypothetical one, that machines are already better than us at things we identify ourselves with.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. AI writing still needs an editor. AI-generated code still needs a developer who understands the broader system. AI can’t read a room or sense what’s unspoken. And you’d be right. Most AI tools are still far from replacing human expertise in any complete way.

But here’s what sitting in that driver’s seat revealed to me: This isn’t about whether AI is perfect everywhere yet. It’s about recognizing that in at least one domain, one I deeply identified with, the shift has already happened. Fully. Undeniably.

And if it can happen with driving, it can happen with your thing too.

Maybe you don’t identify as a driver like I did. Maybe you identify as a therapist, or a teacher, or a software engineer, or whatever you’ve spent years mastering, or at least getting competent enough to make a living at. For the last five or fifty years you’ve been secure in the notion that your particular expertise sets you apart, forms some small or large piece of your identity.

And now, or in five minutes from now, there’s a machine that’s better than you at it. Never gets tired. Never needs a break. And is constantly improving.

That’s the kicker. The current state of this technology is the worst it will ever be.

Now you have a choice to make.

And this is where I think we all have to draw on a deeper truth, and find deeper training, to thrive in this new era.

Because what was my experience on that highway the other night if not a little ego death? One of hundreds on the way to whatever form of awakening or enlightenment you subscribe to.

What is awakening if not the dis-identifying, the disentangling, of what we can do from who we are?

We spent centuries building a world where our value came from what we could do: our skills, our roles, our productivity. We became our jobs. Our expertise. Our abilities.

And maybe, just maybe, we’re converging at a point in human consciousness where we’re being forced, not invited but forced, to let go of that story.

The machines can think. They can analyze. They can drive. They can code. They can write. They can diagnose. They can teach.

But they can’t feel. They can’t be present to their own experience. They can’t know what it’s like to sit with dread on a Sunday evening and choose to turn toward it instead of away. They can’t love. They can’t grieve. They can’t be.

The universe is conspiring to get us to let go. Not to become mindless, but to break out of the trance that our mind is what makes us human.

Maybe this moment in history isn’t an ending. Maybe it’s a beginning. An invitation to come back to what we’ve been foolishly trying to transcend for so long:

A self that is connected to and interconnected with all things. Our capacity to feel. Our presence. Our aliveness.

The essence of who we are that can not be automated.

Because everything else will be.

How 'bout we take the scenic route?