They are, like the Model T before them, strategically banal.

And they sort of have to be. Because driverless cars could be revolutionary. They are, one non-driver at a time, attempting to transform transportation not just as an infrastructure, but as an activity and as an assumption. As Larry Burns, former head of R&D at GM and a consultant to Google, told Alexis, "I think this is not evolutionary but a major shift in how we think about personal mobility."

But does the West’s unique concept of cuteness make Google’s cars seem, well, a little incompetent? Atlantic contributing editor Ian Bogost on the company’s mistake: Google Car for Sale: Slightly Underquipped.

And you know what consumers, in general, don't tend to love in their technology? Major shifts—at least, major shifts that come suddenly, bringing transformation without the courtesy of lethargy. (Take neurasthenia, the 19th-century idea that “wireless telegraphy, science, steam power, newspapers and the education of women; in other words modern civilization” was to blame for "widespread anxiety, depression, headaches and fatigue." The long-ago-discredited disorder was also known as "Americanitis.") We consumers of technology, as unapologetic adopters of status quo bias, tend to like the changes foisted on us to be incremental. And when new devices—new approaches—violate the status quo, we tend to dismiss them in a way that recalls the 19th-century anxieties. We call them "creepy."

As Google's then-CEO, Eric Schmidt, put it to The Atlantic's James Bennet in 2010: “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.”

For the driverless car prototype, that approach involves ... adorability. The driverless car(toon) is evidence and symptom of what Buzzfeed's Charlie Warzel calls "Moonshot Google"—the rebranding of the company as "the Google that wants to use your information, along with everyone else’s, to teach machines how to drive cars, heat your home, and keep you alive longer." Moonshot Google is the Google that, instead of grazing the creepy line, leaps over it. It's the Google that, in the case of the driverless car, has bargained that the best response to paranoia is pareidolia. It's the Google that recognizes that the root of "kawaii," the Japanese concept of cuteness, is not just ai, or love, but also ka—acceptability. It's the Google that hopes what we find "cute" and what we find "creepy" will be, on some level, mutually exclusive.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.