Riders Want Control, Not Code: Dom Kwong on Motorcycles and AI
- Buck City Biker
- 23 hours ago
- 4 min read
Last year, BCB asked whether riders were trading freedom for firmware in our piece Plugged In or Tuned Out. We laid out a question: with more connectivity and more layers between rider and road, when does "assistance" start killing the ride?
Now in 2026, AI makes that question harder to dodge. To dig into it, we sat down with industry veteran, systems specialist, and long time AI advocate Dom Kwong to hear what he thinks AI in motorcycles will look like.
"When someone says AI, right away, they’re thinking, 'Okay, there’s something in this that I cannot control. And that scares me.'" Dom Kwong
Riders Don’t Want Autonomous Bikes
The tech world can make the mistake of assuming riders want what drivers want. Car buyers will happily hand over control if it makes life easier. Riders? Different story. Nobody throws a leg over a bike to feel less involved.
"If manufacturers begin to take away a rider’s control, they start to automate steering, braking or throttle… no, we don’t want that. Motorcycle is probably the one form of transportation where we don’t want control to be taken away."
That doesn’t mean riders reject tech. Most of us already trust ABS and traction control without thinking twice. The problem starts when tech stops assisting and starts trying to ride the bike for you.
AI Might Already Be On Your Bike
Funny thing is, some riders already use AI. They just don’t call it that. Radar, cruise control, blind spot alerts, adaptive suspension, IMUs tracking lean angle and movement hundreds of times a second. These are the places AI actually makes sense, and where it’s already working right now. Kwong describes it less as artificial intelligence and more as “intelligent assistance”.
"AI are just tools. It doesn’t control things. It’s here to inform you. Even systems like radar on motorcycles, they just give you information. They tell you what’s in your blind spot or what’s ahead of you. It’s up to the rider to act on that."
One idea he keeps coming back to is “edge AI”. Systems processing data on the bike itself instead of relying on the cloud. That will work for riders who don’t want a “connected” experience. In plain terms: the bike spotting danger before you do, on its own, without the corporation tracking everything you do.
"You have sensors detecting things and raising flags - saying ‘hey, there’s a blind spot left’ - and that information gets interpreted for the rider. These systems have been around for decades, we’re just using them differently now."
AI helping these systems become smarter, faster and more useful to riders? That’s something we can get on board with. And it’s a very different conversation from the one we were having a year ago.
Predictability Might Save More Riders Than Automation
One of Kwong’s side points had nothing to do with motorcycles at all. It was about AI in cars.
"The best thing an autonomous car can do is be consistent. Do not weave. Let motorcycles choose where we want to go. Because most accidents happen when a car behaves unpredictably, not because the rider didn’t know what they were doing."
You don’t survive traffic on a bike by guessing. You read movement, judge speed, and measure others' hesitation. Kwong’s point is that AI could make roads safer for riders, not by taking control, but by making drivers around us more predictable.
"How many times does a motorcyclist hit another motorcyclist? But why does a motorcyclist smash into a car? Because the car moves in unpredictable behaviour."
That’s the direction he sees: not autonomous bikes, but better-behaved traffic.
Where It All Goes Wrong
Of course, there’s still plenty of room for manufacturers to screw this up. The second AI adds friction instead of removing it, riders will switch off.
BCB’s concerns from last year haven’t gone anywhere. Subscriptions, app dependence, cloud-connected nonsense. Bikes turning into consumer electronics instead of machines you just ride.
"I think some OEMs believe a future that’s fifteen or twenty years away is already here today."
We’ve seen this kind of philosophy in concepts like BMW’s Vision CE, where helmets disappear because a future of AI-controlled traffic will supposedly makes roads “safe enough”. Or OMOWAY's self balancing and semi-autonomous OMO X. Indonesia's real-life production bike that you can summon at will.
"I guarantee you everybody who thought about those ideas did not ride a motorcycle."
The Industry Still Hasn’t Worked Riders Out
According to Kwong, the industry still hasn’t fully figured out how to bring advanced tech onto bikes without disconnecting riders from the machine.
"Radars have been around for over forty years. Only now are you seeing them properly on motorcycles."
Companies like Bosch and Continental are moving things forward, and e-moto brands like Ultraviolette show what it looks like when you want everything to talk to everything. But for Kwong, not all of it translates cleanly to the handlebars.
"I have to bring up BMW and KTM’s left handlebar switch controls. Give me a freaking break. If I wanted a fifty-button remote control I’d watch MotoGP on the telly."
He laughs, but he’s right. Riders don’t want to dig through menus or stab at touchscreens with gloves. They want control without the clutter. And tech that supports the ride instead of distracting from it.
"Too much motorcycle tech still feels designed by people who don’t actually ride."
The BCB Take
Kwong isn’t asking for more AI on motorcycles. He’s asking for better-behaved AI. Systems that don’t second-guess the rider and stay out of the way.
That lands close to where BCB already sits. Last year we warned about bikes turning into rolling firmware platforms. But it's clear now that not all intelligence interferes with the ride.
Of course, it depends on the rider. If your e-moto is just a commuter tool, getting you to work on time, autonomy doesn’t matter as long as it’s faster and safer. But if you ride because you ride, it’s a different game entirely.
And that’s the new line in the sand. AI that replaces rider input is a hard no. But AI that cuts friction and makes riding better? Most riders would take that. Simple rule: if the bike starts making decisions for you, it stops being a motorcycle.
Ride safe, folks.
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