When did everything become “amazing”? I was told by a sales assistant the other day that putting in my PIN number was “amazing”. A flight attendant remarked that buckling my seat belt was, likewise, “amazing”. It’s the all-purpose adjective used, it seems to me, by anyone under 40 years of age. But what to say now when you discover something that really makes you gasp in amazement, that truly, deeply astonishes you? “Amazing” doesn’t really cut it any more.

And so, I’m not quite sure how adequately to describe the mind-blowing feeling of being driven around one of the world’s busiest, most congested cities in a car without a driver. Even though our world has been transformed through technology, I can’t remember a single moment when I paused to think that I have just seen the future. But, in the back seat of a driverless Waymo taxi in Los Angeles last week, I had such an awe-inspiring experience.

This is the future, I thought, and, what’s more, it works. The all-electric Waymo car, a radar-equipped Jaguar, offered a totally........

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