Perry Johnson is a businessman and Republican running for governor in Michigan.
Michigan built the automobile industry.
We should never become the state that helps normalize technology allowing government bureaucrats, corporations, or artificial intelligence systems to remotely control whether Americans can drive their own vehicles.
Yet that is exactly where this dangerous conversation is heading.
Vehicle kill switches are one of the most alarming examples of government overreach and centralized technological control being pushed into everyday American life.
A vehicle is not just transportation.
For many Americans, a vehicle is safety. Escape. Independence. Protection for your family.
Now imagine an AI-driven system deciding whether your vehicle should operate. Imagine algorithms monitoring your driving behavior, location, speech patterns, purchases, or personal data. Imagine a centralized system capable of remotely slowing, limiting, or disabling your car.
That is not science fiction anymore.
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And once that infrastructure exists, it will inevitably expand.
Government agencies will demand more authority. Insurance companies will want access. Hackers will target the systems. Political activists will pressure corporations. And artificial intelligence systems — which nobody fully controls or understands — will increasingly make decisions affecting your freedom and safety.
That is extraordinarily dangerous.
But the most terrifying danger is personal safety.
Imagine a woman being followed late at night by a violent attacker. Imagine a family trying to escape a carjacking. Imagine someone confronted by burglars outside their home. Imagine a mother trying to flee an abusive domestic situation.
Now imagine a kill switch malfunctioning. Or an AI system making an error. Or a remote system disabling the vehicle at the exact worst moment imaginable.
People could die.
When seconds matter, the last thing Americans need is a government-approved AI system deciding whether their car should function.
The political elites pushing these systems live in gated communities with private security. Ordinary Americans do not.
Citizens have a God-given right to protect themselves and their families — and that includes maintaining control over the vehicles they depend upon for survival.
This issue is bigger than politics.
It is about whether Americans remain free citizens or become subjects monitored and controlled by interconnected systems run by bureaucrats, corporations, and artificial intelligence.
As someone who built businesses focused on quality and efficiency, I understand technology. I also understand risk management.
And any honest risk assessment would conclude this:
A centralized system capable of remotely controlling millions of vehicles creates catastrophic potential for abuse, malfunction, cyberattack, and government overreach.
The same political establishment that lost billions through unemployment fraud, failed state technology systems, and corporate subsidy scandals now expects Americans to blindly trust AI-connected vehicle-control systems?
Absolutely not.
Artificial intelligence should never have the power to trap, disable, monitor, or control American citizens through their own vehicles.
Michigan should stand for freedom.
Not digital control.
We must kill the KillSwitch.
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