Keynote: Why Do We Have Self-Driving Cars, But Not Autonomous Networks?#

John Evans – Independent

• Why: Ten years on from Kompella's self-driving-network framing, this asks the structural question: why did configuration automation and network control progress while operations stayed in the alert → ticket → operator loop? (from abstract only — page fetch failed; no slides in the source set)
• What: The argument: networking treats autonomy as an observability-and-workflow problem built on existing systems — the natural first step for applying AI — whereas self-driving cars showed autonomy is a paradigm shift in architecture, signals, models, and control, not an AI feature bolted onto an existing vehicle.
• How: Applies the control-system approach from self-driving cars and robotics to network operations: what's missing today, where autonomy can be deployed safely first, and a realistic path from assisted operations toward autonomous control.
• Where applicable: Conceptual keynote, no results — directional, but a useful frame for anyone shaping network-automation strategy and deciding where copilots/agents genuinely change the operating model versus decorating it.