Among other things, the promise of self-driving cars is that they'll permit us to attend to work-related tasks instead of concentrating on driving. In all that I've read about the lure of self-driving cars (or even about their possible undesirability) I don't think I've ever encountered the possibility that while in our self-driving cars we'll be able to calmly gaze out the window and enjoy the scenery. That, in today's culture, would be a waste of time. Even when we purposefully take a step back from our harried and constantly online lives, it seems that we do so in order to be more productive in the long run. Being busy, or at least not having "spare" time, has become a virtue in today's (western) world. Even those of us who've read the literature and understand that our attempts at multitasking actually make us less productive than were we to focus on only one job find it hard to resist the status that seems to derive from having our hands full with too much to accomplish.