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Hi everyone, welcome to Shift, a podcast about mobility. I'm Pete Bigelow, your host.

We often say that self-driving technology is a reality ripped from the pages of science fiction of the past.

My guess today has worked to ensure that self-driving technology also stays in the pages of science fiction.

Patrick McGinty is the author of Test Drive, a novel about a human safety operator behind the wheel of a self-driving test vehicle in Pittsburgh.

Published in May, the book was on my summer reading list, and I can tell you it delivered.

Patrick teaches English at Slippery Rock University, where in the past he has also taught a class about autonomous vehicle technology.

This is a fun and fascinating conversation coming up, so let's get right to it. Here's my conversation with

author Patrick McGinty. Patrick it's great to have you on the podcast today welcome.

It's great to be here a long time reader certainly have you many other journalists I love many of the people you've had on this podcast or people who informed my understanding of this sector quite a bit so it's it's very it's very much an honor for me to appear you know in a podcast feed with all of them and you

great well I think this is going to be fantastic let's jump right in

I often ask our podcast guests, as you may know, as the final question of the

podcast about what they're reading, what sort of materials are influencing their worldview.

So you're an English professor.

I'm going to flip the script today and make that my first question.

What's up?

What are you reading, whether about transportation or beyond?

Oh man, I'm always reading a lot. I mean reading stuff that maybe this particular audience wouldn't be super psyched about necessarily. I just finished a small press book by Alyssa Quinn called Habalis, which is about, I guess you would say, staying all night in a museum that kind of comes to life and understanding humanity through the history of bones. That's blowing my world. I just finished

Vitalic Bhuterin who invented or helped co-found Ethereum.

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