讓自動駕駛消除汽車弊端

We often make lists of the best inventions of all time. But which are the worst?

我們經(jīng)常會列出有史以來最優(yōu)秀的發(fā)明。但最糟糕的發(fā)明是哪些呢?

The nuclear bomb would be up there. The AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle also has a particular claim to infamy. The World Bank has estimated that there are about 75m such guns in circulation, causing tens of thousands of deaths a year.

核彈將是其中之一。AK-47卡拉什尼科夫(Kalashnikov)突擊步槍也可以排在榜單前列。世界銀行(World Bank)估計，現(xiàn)在大約有7500萬支這樣的槍支在流通，每年造成數(shù)萬人死亡。

But one other invention has killed many, many times more people than both of those weapons put together: the motor car.

但另外有一種發(fā)明導致人類死亡的總數(shù)要比這兩種武器加起來還要多得多：汽車。

About 1.25m people are killed in road traffic accidents a year, accounting for 2.2 per cent of all deaths globally, according to the World Health Organization. Accurate data on how many people in total have been killed by cars in the past century are hard to find. But 50m seems a fair guess. That compares with the 123m in all wars in the 20th century.

根據(jù)世界衛(wèi)生組織(WHO)的數(shù)據(jù)，每年約有125萬人死于道路交通事故，占全球死亡總數(shù)的2.2%。我們很難找到有關過去100年有多少人死于汽車的準確數(shù)據(jù)。但5000萬似乎是個合理的猜測。作為比較，20世紀所有戰(zhàn)爭加在一起導致的死亡人數(shù)為1.23億人。

If that level of carnage were not bad enough, cars have also contributed massively to environmental pollution and adverse climate change. As an additional malus, the car’s thirst for oil has handed billions of dollars in revenues to some of the world’s most regressive regimes: Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela.

如果這種死亡水平還不夠糟糕的話，汽車還極大地加劇了環(huán)境污染和不利的氣候變化。還有一個弊端是，汽車對燃油的需求讓世界上一些最差的政權(quán)——沙特阿拉伯、俄羅斯和委內(nèi)瑞拉——輕松獲得巨額財政收入。

Fortunately, the end of the human-driven, petrol-fuelled car may be in sight. Some computer scientists describe driverless car technology as essentially a “solved problem”, even if huge challenges remain before car companies are confident enough to launch fully autonomous passenger vehicles on to the road. Protocols still need to be worked out to determine how one driverless car will interact with another and how to prevent hacking.

幸運的是，由人類駕駛、汽油驅(qū)動的汽車的末日可能近在眼前。一些電腦科學家把自動駕駛汽車技術(shù)稱為一個基本上“已解決的問題”，即便在汽車企業(yè)有足夠自信讓完全自動駕駛的乘用車上路之前還存在巨大挑戰(zhàn)。需要制定規(guī)則，確定無人駕駛汽車之間如何互動，以及如何阻止黑客入侵。

But human, rather than technological, resistance seems likelier to be the biggest brake on the driverless car revolution. Whether we are behind the wheel or thinking about new technologies, humans remain inherently erratic.

但人為(而非技術(shù))阻力似乎更有可能成為自動駕駛汽車革命的最大掣肘。無論我們是在開車還是思考新技術(shù)，人類在本質(zhì)上仍是怪異的。

For the moment, governments are putting in place regulations to encourage the adoption of driverless, electric cars and manufacturers are experimenting fast.

就眼下而言，政府正在制定監(jiān)管規(guī)定，鼓勵研發(fā)自動駕駛汽車和電動汽車，而制造商正在快速實驗。

Last week, Philip Hammond, the British chancellor, said he wanted the UK to be one of the first countries to allow “genuine driverless cars” on its roads by 2021 (although he did not want to be photographed in one for fear of embarrassing political metaphors about the state of the British government).

上周，英國財政大臣菲利普•哈蒙德(Philip Hammond)表示，他希望英國成為首批允許“真正的無人駕駛汽車”到2021年上路的國家之一(盡管他不愿坐上一輛無人駕駛汽車拍照，擔心被當作諷刺英國政府現(xiàn)狀的難堪的政治隱喻。)

Car companies are gearing up to deliver. Uber announced last week that it would buy up to 24,000 Volvo cars by 2021 to prepare a fleet of fully autonomous, on-demand passenger vehicles.

汽車公司正在作出響應。優(yōu)步(Uber)上周宣布，將在2021年前購買多達2.4萬輛沃爾沃(Volvo)汽車，以組建一個完全自主的、隨選即行的乘用車車隊。

One of the biggest risks is that governments and car companies will rush into allowing poorly tested autonomous vehicles on to our roads prematurely, triggering a public backlash. No matter how good the technology becomes, autonomous cars are still going to kill people. “The assumption that you can go from 1m [road deaths] to zero is very naive,” says one tech executive.

最大的風險之一是，政府和汽車制造商將倉促允許未經(jīng)充分測試的自動駕駛汽車過早上路，從而引發(fā)公眾反彈。不管這項技術(shù)變得多么完善，自動駕駛汽車仍會致人死亡。一名科技公司高管表示：“以為你可以把(交通死亡人數(shù))從100萬降至零是非常幼稚的。”

Proving that autonomous cars are demonstrably safer than human-driven cars is therefore going to be a tough battle of statistics and public perception. The first death caused by a driverless car is certain to turn the likes of Jeremy Clarkson into a beetroot-faced, “told-you-so” motormouth.

因此，證明自動駕駛汽車明顯比人類駕駛汽車更安全，將是統(tǒng)計學家和公眾認知之間的艱苦斗爭。自動駕駛汽車帶來的首例死亡，肯定讓杰羅米•克拉克森(Jeremy Clarkson)這樣的名嘴興奮地圍繞“我早就告訴過你會這樣”的主題喋喋不休。

The TV car show presenter has already shouted his doubts about the reliability of autonomous driving technology, challenging its promoters to sit in one of their cars as it drives down Death Road in Bolivia.

這位電視汽車節(jié)目主持人已表達過他對自動駕駛技術(shù)可靠性的疑問，他向這項技術(shù)的推介者發(fā)起挑戰(zhàn)，問他們敢不敢坐上自己在吹噓的自動駕駛汽車，在玻利維亞的“死亡之路”(Death Road)上行駛。

But he is right that motorists have an extraordinary attachment to their cars. The car has brought enormous mobility, liberty and enjoyment to millions of people. A huge number of jobs, investments and corporate interests are also dependent on the current model of car transport, no matter how dangerous it may be. For those reasons, some transport experts doubt whether the driverless car revolution will ever happen.

但他說的話有一點是正確的，那就是駕車者對自己的汽車有著異乎尋常的依戀。汽車為數(shù)以百萬計的人帶來了巨大的流動性、自由和享受。大量就業(yè)、投資和公司利益也依賴于當前的汽車交通模式——不管它可能有多危險。出于這些原因，一些交通專家對于自動駕駛汽車革命是否會來臨表示懷疑。

At the other extreme are those, like the technology think-tank RethinkX, who predict that “we are on the cusp of one of the fastest . . . most consequential disruptions of transportation in history”.

處在另一個極端的是類似科技智庫RethinkX的那些人，他們預測，“我們正站在歷史上最迅速……最重大的交通模式顛覆之一的門檻上。”

They forecast that 95 per cent of US passenger miles will be made by autonomous, electric, on-demand vehicle fleets within 10 years of receiving widespread regulatory approval as we move towards a “transport-as-a-service” model. By 2030, the number of passenger vehicles on American roads will drop from 247m to 44m, destroying millions of driving jobs and the oil industry.

他們預測，在獲得廣泛監(jiān)管審批后的10年內(nèi)，美國95%的客運里程將由自動駕駛汽車、電動汽車和約車完成。我們將轉(zhuǎn)向把“交通作為服務”的模式。到2030年，美國的乘用車保有量將從2.47億降至4400萬，數(shù)百萬的駕駛崗位乃至石油業(yè)將遭到毀滅性打擊。

Which scenario unfolds in the real world will be a matter of societal choice as much as technological possibility. We should triple-test the technology, weigh the evidence carefully and choose wisely. We have had enough of bad inventions.

哪種場景會在真實世界出現(xiàn)，既是一個社會選擇問題，也是一個技術(shù)可能性問題。我們應該反復測試這項技術(shù)、審慎衡量證據(jù)，然后做出明智選擇。我們的糟糕發(fā)明已經(jīng)夠多了。

[email protected] 譯者/梁艷裳