device,” he said. “The modern technology isn’t just dumbing us down completely.” McKinlay remains convinced that navigation technologies have a long way to go before futuristic scenarios involving driverless cars and smart cities become a reality. “For really critical applications – safety applications like landing aircraft or navigating aircraft – GPS is still not good enough,” he said. Though Spiers believes the development of artificial intelligence based on machine learning could lead to a new wave of navigational aids, McKinlay remains sceptical. “We will see ever- smarter machines which are very, very task specific, but the big breakthrough will be when they are able to tune in to what you might be thinking and what you might be wanting to achieve,” he said. Ultimately, McKinlay believes, it’s essential that humans remain able to take control of their navigation. “Do you really want to encourage people to get to a point where, when it disappears or when the battery goes flat, they are in total shock and can do nothing?” he said. “Technology isn’t magic – it is just a tool.”