I and a church acquaintance were killing time in
the coffee-shop (evangelical watering hole) last Sunday and happened to be
discussing the driverless car concept. We considered sociological
ramifications, dystopian outcomes and ultimately ended up solving the crisis in
the Middle East. But early in the process, during the dystopian part, some
thoughts were shared which I believe bear some consideration before we jump into
our driverless vehicle with both feet.
I try not to watch much prime time TV; sometimes
I succeed more than others. But there is
one show I go out of my way to not miss:
Person of Interest. Lovingly
known around our house as the “box show” because of the opening scene, it shows
city streets crowded with pedestrians who have target acquisition boxes
superimposed over them as they go about their business, all seemingly unaware
that they are being tracked and monitored.
The show features two perhaps sentient artificial
intelligence computers (never seen, always implied) which utilize human agents to
do their bidding. Both were originally developed at the request of the federal
government for purposes of tracking and locating “Persons of Interest” for
counter-terrorism responses. The original
machine, Northern Lights, was programmed to keep people safe through this
mechanism and had stop-gaps built into its programming to keep it from
“evolving” into other directives.
The second, Samaritan, having had its software
penned by a different author, has no such inhibitions and now only acts in its
own self-interest, masterfully hiding its motives and carnage under the guise
of interventions for the greater good. Long and short, a mechanism built to
protect the public ends up being used against it.
Now that I’ve belabored the background, allow me
to circle back around to the point of our hazelnut-cream laden dystopian
discussion. We talked about accident avoidance, and more specifically, how that
could play out in a world of driverless cars.
In our new Mockingjay world, two cars approach
on an undivided highway. Car number one, its optical sensor on front obscured
by squashed bug, fails to respond to a piece of demolition debris in the road
and hits it, blowing the left front tire. The computer tries to respond, but
the steering corrections cause the car to slide into the oncoming path of car number two
due to the rain-soaked pavement.
The satellite network that ties all this technology
together for routing purposes is monitored by a supercomputer that sorts out
the data for driverless cars. This computer has received data via seat-sensors that car number
one has four occupants, whereas the car minding its own
business has only one. The computer runs its algorithm and determines based on
speed that if they collide head-on, all five people will likely lose their lives, so in the name
of accident avoidance it has to make a determination. Which of the cars does it
hurl off the roadbed and into an area wooded with two-foot diameter oak trees? Solve for X.
The stuff of an opening scene to a science
fiction thriller? Maybe. But remember that history is riddled with stories of people
giving up social freedoms, only later to have these same concessions turn dark
and then be used against them.
Looking forward to my next caffeine laden revelation…
© 2015 D.W. Williams
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