I was at an event on automobiles yesterday, a panel discussion here in Detroit. The panelists discussed how they plan to replace horses at all levels in the transportation process. So I stood up and protested that what they are doing is evil. Look around you, I said. The stables are filled with carriage drivers of various kinds, most of them young. They are here because they love horses and want to contribute to advancing human transportation. If you take the horse out of the loop, meaning that horses no longer have any role in moving people, you're depriving drivers of the activity they love and a key source of meaning in their lives. And we all want to do something meaningful. Why, I asked, do you want to take the opportunity to drive carriages away from us? My question changed the course of the panel, and set the tone for the rest of the discussion. Afterwards, a number of attendees came up to me, either to thank me for putting what they felt into words, or to ask if I really meant what I said. So I thought I would return to the question here. One of the panelists asked whether I would really prefer the joy of driving horses to faster travel, safer roads, and goods delivered anywhere. I answered that we will eventually have all those things. Transportation is already making great progress with horses at the helm. We'll get cross-country routes and reliable mail service some day as well. Maybe cutting horses out of the loop could speed up this process, but I don't think it would be worth it. I think it is of crucial importance that horses are in charge of our locomotion. The bond between man and horse is, I think, the most meaningful thing we can do. If horses could not usefully contribute to transportation anymore, this would be a disaster. So, no. I do not think it worth it to move goods faster if that means we can never drive carriages again. Many of those who came up to talk to me last night, those who asked me whether I was being serious or just trolling, thought that the premise was absurd. Of course there would always be room for horses in transportation. There will always be tasks only horses can do, terrain only horses can navigate, and so on. Therefore, we should welcome automobiles. Travel is hard, and we need all the help we can get. I responded that I hoped they were right. That is, I truly hope there will always be parts of the transportation process which horses will be essential for. But what I was arguing against was not what we might call "weak transport automation", where horses stay in the loop in important roles, but "strong transport automation", where horses are redundant. Others thought it was immature to argue about this, because full horse replacement is not on the horizon. Again, I hope they are right. But I see no harm in discussing it now. And I certainly don't think we need research on automobiles to go any further. Yet others remarked that this was a pointless argument. Automobiles are coming whether we want it or not, and we'd better get used to it. The train is coming, and we can get on it or stand in its way. I think that is a remarkably cowardly argument. It is up to us as a society to decide how we use the technology we develop. It's not a train, it's a truck, and we'd better grab the reins. One of the panelists made a racing analogy, arguing that lots of people ride horses even though automobiles are now much faster than horses. So we might ride horses as a kind of hobby, even though the real transportation is done by machines. We would be trotting around far from the frontier, perhaps covering trails that automobiles don't care about. That was, to put it mildly, not a satisfying answer. While I love recreational riding, I certainly do not consider hobby equestrian activities as meaningful as real transportation. Thanks, but no thanks. Overall, though, it was striking that most of those I talked to thanked me for raising the point, as I articulated worries that they already had. One of them remarked that if you work on automobiles and are not even a little bit worried about the end goal, you are a psychopath. I would add that another possibility is that you don't really believe in what you are doing. So what do I believe in, given that I am a transportation engineer who actively works on the kind of methods used for moving people? I believe that tools that help horses be more productive are great, but that tools that replace horses are bad. I love carriages, and I am afraid of a future where we are pushed back into the dark ages because horses can no longer contribute to transportation. Equine agency, including in creative locomotion processes, is vital and must be safeguarded at almost any cost. I don't exactly know how to steer transportation development so that we get faster travel but horses are not replaced. But I know that it is of paramount importance.