own offices. Nearest to reality, perhaps, is General Motors' OnStar ANT - a vehicle from which individuality has been eliminated (left).

Its five sides consist of hexagonal flat panels that incorporate carbon nanotube batteries. Quantum computing power allows the vehicle - not its human cargo - to communicate with other nearby vehicles and robotically to regulate its own speed, direction and distance from danger. For the first time it might be possible to drive home paralytic, endangering nobody.

So far as it is possible to see, no provision has been made for the occupants of the OnStar ANT to look out on the world.

Perhaps they would prefer not to see what's there.