Car_and_Driver_USA_July_2017

sh!t
rest of the world. Here at C/D,
we’re already on metric time and
will be transitioning to a metric
alphabet in the coming months.
Massaging seats—
except for the Ford/
Lincoln ones that really
dig into your rear end.
Your tired jokes about Subarus
being driven by lesbians.
“Pedal misapplication.”
An inexplicably gentle
euphemism for unforgivable
stupidity.
Bumper stickers that are
already implied by the vehicle:
“Go vegan!” on a Prius, or
promoting gun rights on a
pickup. Not Bullshit: “Driving
a hybrid leaves me more money
for ammo.”
How little karting we and you
do. Everybody could use more.
Autonomy:
The Trolley
Problem Is Not
the Problem
—
A common discussion
around autonomous
cars ties into an old
hypothetical scenario
in ethics called “the
trolley problem.” In
this thought experiment,
a trolley is barreling
out of control
toward five people,
whom it will surely kill. You could flip a switch and divert the trolley
onto a sidetrack, where it will kill only one person. Do you flip the
switch, thereby taking an active role in one death, or do nothing,
allowing five deaths without any responsibility?
The autonomous equivalent is a self-driving car making decisions
about hitting people in a crosswalk versus at an outdoor café, hitting
pedestrians versus hitting solid objects and endangering its own driver
and occupants, plowing over Earth’s last western lowland gorilla rather
than running through the rest of the zoo, etc. The hand-wringers
wonder how we can possibly program a car to make these decisions.
They wonder if this isn’t our Ian Malcolm could/should moment. But
the flaw in these scenarios is the assumption that a human driver makes
a decision at all. It’s proved daily that we just hit whatever we’re pointed
at when we panic. A machine couldn’t possibly do worse.
Head-up displays. Station wagons. The Prius. Lewis Hamilton. Formula 1. Stability control. Bicycles. Turn signals.
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