While visiting in Texas for a couple of weeks, I encountered two Waymo cars wandering through the neighborhood, driverless. It doesn’t need a human driver: it works on its own. I’m not sure if they were a fully functional Waymo vehicles looking to pick up a customer or whether they were just getting to know the streets in the neighborhood. It’s still a little disconcerting to see a driverless car on the streets I drive and at corners where kids and pedestrians cross. How safe are they? Safer than the average human driver? Perhaps. Even if the crash rate for driverless vehicles was say 25% of the crash rate for human-driven vehicles, that will not be much consolation to someone who gets sideswiped or run over. And the claim that, in general, driverless vehicles cause fewer crashes than comparable human-driven vehicles is likely not a valid defense to a particular lawsuit for a particular injury. I don’t care if your driverless taxis are generally safer, that one over there ran over my kid.

[Aside] But who do you sue? There is no negligent driver. A defective product? You’re not the purchaser. A software glitch? Can you, as a third party, sue a negligent programmer that works for the company that manufactured the vehicle? As the law evolves in this new area, the initial answer is going to be: Sue everyone and do lots of discovery. Put Elon on the stand, that will almost certainly win you the case. States that allow driverless taxis and driverless vehicles in general should require supplementary insurance and set up a statutory regime for assigning liability when driverless vehicles are involved in an accident. And require every driverless vehicle to have its own “black box” that records detailed info about what caused the crash or injury and that investigators and lawyers will have easy access to. Something like this will emerge from state statutes or evolving case law. [End of aside.]

Let’s jump from vehicles to organizations and services, as delivered by a retailer, a bank, or even say a church. Lots of systems you interact with these days are autonomous. Like autonomous driving units, they don’t need a driver, they work on their own. ATMs replace bank tellers, self-check stations at the grocery store replace checkers, ineffective help menus on the phone replace human customer service agents, and so forth. In the LDS Church, self-paying tithing through your online account has largely replaced the old check-in-the-envelope system, which means a clerk and a bishopric member don’t have to stay for an hour after church to record the contributions, make sure it all balances, and drive a deposit to the local bank. Is that an improvement?

Any other LDS autonomous processes or systems you can think of? I’ll jump right to the top and say: President. The LDS system is so conservative and conventional that, at this point, I suspect the President doesn’t have much to do. My evidential support for this claim is that when an LDS President enters a declining phase of incapacity … things go on pretty much as normal, even if the incapacity phase lasts years. Kind of like a car with no-hands driving: the driver is there but isn’t really doing anything. Sure, LDS Presidents go to meetings and sign documents. But when a declining President can’t go to the meetings and can’t sign the documents … things just carry on as normal. Driverless car. Leaderless church.

I’m stretching things a bit, but one must acknowledge that, for the most part, the Church as a system manages itself. There are some counterarguments to be made. Look, new LDS President, and now women can serve as missionaries at age 18 and we can openly use non-KJV Bibles in church! Yes, the new guy approves a few predrafted possible policy changes that they like and approve. Of course, the predrafted policy changes are produced by staff. Who are part of The System. So The System produces its own possible policy changes, which sometimes get approved and enacted. Another counterargument is that at the senior leader level, it’s really leadership by committee. It’s the First Presidency as a quorum of three or the Big 15 as a group that make decisions, so if the leading member is out of the loop, the remaining committee members soldier on.

So is the Church an autonomous system that functions largely without human direction? Have you ever had a local leader respond to your question or request by consulting the Handbook and saying, “I’m sorry, but the Handbook does not allow that, even if it strikes me as a good idea.” Translation: the human thinks that’s a good idea, but The System won’t allow it. No different from the airline agent at the ticket counter saying, “I’m sorry, but the computer won’t let me change your reservation.” Also, think about how long, years and decades, it takes for patently obvious changes to be made to The System, from big ones like dropping racial exclusion practices (priesthood and temple) to little ones like getting from three-hour church to two-hour church. It is so robust that even when changes are obvious it takes an amazing amount of effort to change The LD System.

But here is the big question: Is replacing human decisions and systems with system interactions or online exchanges an improvement or the opposite? Honestly, it turns out I’d rather submit tithing through my LDS account than hand off envelopes and have a couple of local leaders read and record my checks. I’d probably rather visit the temple recommend kiosk and hit the “Yes” button 14 times than visit with my bishop. It could even have you stick your arm in a blood pressure and heartbeat cuff to monitor your responses. “Your biometrics spiked when answering the last question. Would you like to reconsider your response?” I’m sure it wouldn’t take much effort, if the ward data file were expanded to include more demographic, work, and education for each member, to write an algorithm that could scan ward membership records to suggest the best candidate for the next YW President or Gospel Doctrine teacher. How about a little robot or two to travel around the chapel, dispensing bread and water to congregants? It could do facial recognition scanning to make sure those on the bishop’s naughty list don’t partake.

So what do you think?

  • Are there other examples you can think of in the Church where the human element has been removed from the system or practice? Any eliminated callings? Maybe the ward magazine rep?
  • Any good examples from the wide world you’d like to throw in? Holiday travel should give some ideas. Maybe renting a car you set up with an online reservation and later return it, all with no human interactions. Cars that rent themselves.
  • Is the LDS President largely a ceremonial position at this point? Does The LDS System or the balance of the management committee take care of everything whether there is a capable President or not?
  • At the local LDS level, is it an improvement or a problem that services and practices are slowly being replaced with online services? Any new proposals?