00100	1. The virtues of cars not posessed by other means of transportation.
00200	
00300	2. We can continue indefinitely to have cars except in Manhattan and
00400	probably even there.
00500	
00600	3. How cars can be made to serve better.
00700	
00800	4. What might be better yet.
00900	
01000		There has been much denunciation of the role of the automobile
01100	in American life, and when I first thought of organizing a session
01200	on the long term future of the automobile, I thought that this
01300	denunciation had given rise to a controversy that in turn had
01400	given rise to strongly held reasonably comprehensive views of what
01500	the future of the automobile ought to be.  As far as I have been
01600	able to determine, this was a mistake.  Neither the autombile
01700	companies nor the environmental organizations, nor the Department
01800	of Transportation, nor the Environmental Protection Agency nor
01900	the academic community has developed any comprehensive views on the
02000	subject.  At least none were produced by a literature search
02100	and a rather determined search for speakers for this symposium.
02200	From this I have concluded that most of the talk is just posturing
02300	and that almost everyone expects things to continue more or less
02400	as they are now - at least until some catastrophe occurs
02500	that may or may not be related to the automobile.
02600	
02700		This has encouraged me to express a comprehensive view
02800	even though only one part of it - the computer part - has
02900	anything really new in it.
03000	This view has several components:
03100	
03200		1. The virtues of the automobile as compared to any
03300	existing or presently planned form of public transportation
03400	are so great that we should plan for its continuance until
03500	it can be replaced by a transportation system (quite possibly
03600	also individual) that has these virtues in an even greater
03700	degree.
03800	
03900		2. Most of the agitation and legislation concerning
04000	the automobile in the last five years has been misguided -
04100	mainly the expression of intellectual fads.  Nevertheless,
04200	we can afford the waste that the legislation has caused so
04300	far, and some aspects of the legislation - if not the
04400	spirit that gave rise to it - are worthwhile.
04500	In short, the 1950s understood the automobile better than the 1970s.
04600	How things got worse is worthy of study; the scientific
04700	community is not without its share of the responsibility.
04710	Besides this, many of the legal and bureaucratic measures that
04720	have been taken without the informed consent of the governed
04730	and are tyrannical in any sense of the word.
04750	
04800	
04900		4. In order to keep the automobile with its present
05000	virtues only the energy problem has to be solved - i.e. none
05100	of the other problems actually require action, although some
05200	action may be helpful.  The energy problem for vehicles is
05300	substantial and requires action beyond that required for the
05400	general energy problem.
05500	
05600		5. The automobile can be made a more useful tool than
05700	it is now, but most of the improvements require a degree of
05800	artificial intelligence (my field) that won't come easily or
05900	quickly, but will come eventually.
06000	
06100		This paper is devoted to elaborating these five points.
06200	
06300	
06400	THE VIRTUES OF THE AUTOMOBILE
06500	
06600		Much of this section is belaboring the obvious, i.e.
06700	bringing to the top of the reader's mind things that he has
06800	probably thought of at one time or another.