V – Coexistence: Man and Algorithm in the Same Traffic Space
Series: Road Without Signs — On the Psychology of Movement in a World Increasingly Governed by Others
Every new technology begins as a promise — a promise of ease, order, and safety.
Yet behind that promise always stands something man struggles to admit: the fear that he may no longer be necessary.
When the machine takes over a single movement, a single decision, man is left — for a moment — without his old mirror.
And only then does he realize how deeply he was attached to error, to that imperfect decision which, despite everything, made him feel alive.
Thus begins a new drama — not between man and machine, but within man himself, in that quiet tremor that arises when the steering wheel stops before he intended it to.
When Predictability Becomes Frustration
Autonomous systems drive flawlessly. They keep distance, signal on time, and brake without hesitation.
But that very flawlessness can be unsettling.
Man, in his fragility, feels challenged — as though perfection reminds him of his own mistakes.
And so the paradox emerges: the safer the algorithm, the more it irritates the one who longs to feel the vitality of improvisation.
Studies show that trust in automated vehicles is not static but dynamic — it evolves and fluctuates over time.
🔗 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1279271/full
The Collision of Two Styles
Human driving is full of small irrationalities that give it meaning: we let someone pass without signaling, respond to a glance, sense an intention before it is expressed.
Code does not recognize such nuances.
It maintains the lane, but it knows nothing of a half-smile, of hesitation, or of the spontaneity that precedes choice.
Thus, in the same flow of traffic, two worlds collide — one ruled by rules, and another by the moment.
EEG-based studies show that trust in autonomous vehicles changes depending on whether the user feels in control or deprived of it — man trusts only as long as he senses he could take back the wheel.
Correctness as Provocation
Driving that is “too proper” can provoke defiance.
Sometimes a driver will overtake an autonomous vehicle not because of its speed, but because of its stubborn correctness.
As if predictability itself becomes an invitation to unpredictability.
There is something profoundly human in this — a need to prove that life cannot be reduced to a single algorithm, even if doing so entails a touch of risk.
EG-based studies show that trust in autonomous vehicles changes depending on whether the user feels in control or deprived of it — man trusts only as long as he senses he could take back the wheel.
🔗 https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroinformatics/articles/10.3389/fninf.2022.907942/full
A Network of Constant Dissonance
Traffic has always been a network of improvisations.
But when an algorithm enters that network, it behaves like a body without a soul — present, yet foreign.
Its perfection does not resonate as harmony, but as a silence in which something is missing.
Here arises the question: can balance ever truly exist, or are we condemned to perpetual dissonance — between a being that thinks in impulses and a machine that counts in code?
The concept of trust and adaptation toward automation is increasingly understood not as a technical variable, but as a relationship.
The Space Between
Perhaps within this dissonance lies a new school of driving.
A space where man learns patience, and the algorithm slowly learns unpredictability.
In that narrow corridor between control and impulse, something third appears: the realization that neither side can fully reign.
Coexistence does not mean victory — it means acceptance.
The quiet consent to share the road with something that has no soul, yet somehow keeps us safe.
Looking Ahead: When Code Steps Into the Street
All of this holds true while the road is orderly, the lane clear, and the signal bright.
But what happens when code enters the streets of Athens, Belgrade, or Naples — cities where every meter of asphalt has its own rhythm, its own unwritten rule?
Where law gives way to resourcefulness, the algorithm becomes a stranger, and man regains his old role — the one who feels the border between order and chaos.
That is where the next chapter of Path Without a Sign begins:
🔹 Can autonomous vehicles survive in cultures where “getting by” is considered a virtue?
🔹 Can instinct be programmed — or is flexibility a gift that belongs only to man?
🔹 And where does the ethics of global rules end — and the morality of the local road begin?
Where technology must learn culture, and culture must face the mirror of its own chaos — our journey continues.
Earlier texts from the series Road Without Signs (Summer 2025):
For the final touch, let us add a tone to the silence.
Recommended soundtrack: “Tron: Ares.”