Doug Chakya

Imagine: it's 2025 and you are an engineer managing traffic in and out of a major city. You watch the roads fill up at rush hour as people in autonomous cars, trucks and buses buzz alongside pedestrians and cyclists guided by their internet-connected eyewear. Your job is to plan efficient, safe and environmentally friendly routes.

Since this is the future, all your decisions are guided by data. Algorithms predict with astonishing accuracy what will happen when the weather changes, plans alter at the last minute and emergencies require people to leave their homes and jobs in a hurry. Still, even with all this information, your job isn't easy. Every time you try to minimise congestion, you face the same problem: can you do any better than first-come, first-served?


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Today, police cars, ambulances and buses get special treatment on roads because of the contributions they make to public welfare and safety. But these narrow exceptions aside, our roads are managed without prioritisation. In the future, however, we will be able to make finer discriminations about who individual drivers are, what destinations they've set and what they're expected to do when they arrive. Those distinctions will lead, inevitably, to decisions. Traffic engineers will assume the role of social planners.

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For some time now, the related issues of control and intelligent infrastructure have fuelled the network neutrality debate

In theory, having such fine-grained control over traffic seems like the perfect use of big data and artificial intelligence. That's why today's policymakers are enthusiastically lobbying governments to invest in smart grids - electricity-supply networks that automatically detect and react to changes in usage. In practice, however, things are more complicated than that.

To appreciate why, imagine being a traveller in 2025, instead of an engineer. Picture yourself in an autonomous car that's made it halfway to your destination. Say you're a parent travelling to your child's football match, which they've been looking forward to for weeks. All of a sudden, your self-driving car turns around. Confused and upset, you say, "Siri, why am I being re-routed? Why is this happening to me?" In response, the digital assistant laconically replies, "Sorry, but there's priority traffic heading in the centre of town." What you don't know for sure but deeply suspect is that the smart traffic-management software is programmed to assign a comparatively low value to "mundane" social outings such as amateur sports for children. Business deals, like the one your neighbour is heading to, count as more important in our connected world.

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At first glance, this scenario might seem like bad science fiction. In fact, it's a very old and very real problem. For some time now, the related issues of control and intelligent infrastructure have fuelled the network neutrality debate. Proponents of network neutrality are concerned that if internet service providers get to charge Netflix, YouTube or any website for the privilege of being downloaded at a faster speed than others - allowing some companies to avoid becoming slowed down - society would allow deep pockets to hijack our attention.

That network neutrality is under threat. Donald Trump has appointed Ajit Pai as chair of the Federal Communications Commission and he appears poised to roll back the 2015 Open Internet Order. It presents legally enforceable rules preventing broadband internet service providers from blocking or throttling traffic or introducing paid prioritisation. Pai vehemently dissented from it in 2015 and it seems likely he'll use his new position to try to dismantle it.

It's tempting to back him if it means we'll be able to stream movies faster and buffer-free. But while smart systems seem attractive, they'll inevitably be optimised for corporate profit and control. The principle of first-come, first-served is our best protection against interference. We need it on the web - and on the roads.