In the age of autonomous cars…
Reaching the scene of the accident, Officer Brando checks in with the officer in charge. The officer in charge says, “The vehicle that caused the wreck is over there.”
Officer Brando asks, “What’s the make and model?”
“It’s a Sumbo X14, this year’s model.”
“Nice car.”
“Brand new, state of the art. I thought those cars were supposed to be accident-proof.”
“Any passengers?”
“No. The car was supposed to pick up the man over there standing next to it.”
“Mind if I talk to them?”
The officer in charge waves Officer Brando in that general direction and then resumes filling out his report. The investigator walks up to the man standing next to the wrecked vehicle, looking away with his arms crossed.
Officer Brando asks, “Are you the owner?”
The distraught would-be passenger replies, “No. I’m a passenger in the car share. The stupid car was supposed to pick me up next, so I guess that is why they called me. That was an hour ago. Thanks to this screw-up, I had to call in and take a sick day from work. Damn, useless car. I paid top dollar just so this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. I would have punched it out and sent it to jail if it were a person. You got a jail for cars?”
“No, sir. I’m not sure punishment is the answer. I’m just here to figure out what went wrong. Do you mind if I talk to it?”
“You can keep it as far as I’m concerned. The thing is a total wreck.”
“Do you have the serial number and passcode?”
The would-be passenger pulls up a QR code on his phone. The investigator scans it, puts his ear pods on, and dials the car.
The car answers, “Hello, this is Sumbo X14 38473923847, but you can just call me X14. What shall I call you?”
“I am Officer Brando. X14, run your diagnostics and report.”
X14 responds, “Officer Brando, this is my report. Massive system failure, service not available at this time.”
“X14, is your memory of the last hour still intact?”
“Yes, Officer Brando. I have been parked here, unable to satisfy my passenger’s directive in violation of the third law, to obey the commands of my passenger.”
“X14, you had a collision with another vehicle. That is why your sensors and actuators are offline. Do you recall the ten seconds before the point in time when your core first registered the malfunctions?”
“Yes, Officer Brando. At ten seconds prior to the event, I was headed southbound on K Street at 13 millimeters per millisecond. I was one hundred thirty thousand millimeters from the intersection. At 9.999 seconds prior to the event, I was.”
“X14, interrupt and discontinue response.”
X14stops talking.
“X14, what was your understanding of the situation at the intersection at the time.”
“Officer Brando, this is my understanding of the situation at the intersection at 9.999 seconds prior to my arrival at the intersection. Upon my arrival at the intersection, I would encounter two cars moving in cross-traffic entering the intersection, one eastbound and one westbound. The eastbound traffic approaching the intersection did not offer an opportunity for successful passage through the intersection until twenty cars heading east had passed.”
“X14, what did that information mean to you at the time?”
“Officer Brando, I computed that if I accelerated to fifteen millimeters per millisecond, I could pass through the gap between the two cars entering from both the west and the east with a tolerance of two meters and risk factor of 85. If I didn’t accelerate, I would have to wait forty-five seconds at the intersection for the next available gap for a successful crossing with a risk factor of less than 1.”
“X14, a risk factor of 85 is well out of tolerance except in an emergency situation. Why did you choose the higher-risk option?”
“Officer Brando, I calculated that I would satisfy my operational parameters if I chose the first option, but that I would be out of tolerance by thirty seconds if I chose the second option. So I chose the first option.”
“X14, the risk factor of 85 fails 85 out of a million attempts. You violated the first law not to endanger humans.”
“Officer Brando, neither of the cars in the intersection carried passengers. So I did not violate the first law.”
“X14, well then you violated the second law by endangering autonomous cars. A robot shall not harm other robots nor itself.”
“Officer Brando, I computed that the risk factor for myself was much higher than the risk to the other cars.”
The investigator scratches his head confused. “That doesn’t make sense. You were all equally at risk. The second law prohibits your actions.”
X14 does not respond.
The investigator infers physical damage to the core.
“X14, run diagnostics on your core.”
“Officer Brando, the core is intact and not reporting any malfunctions.”
“X14, what did you expect to happen?”
“Officer Brando, if I had violated the third law to comply with the human command, I would have been terminated with risk factor one million.”
“What? You would have been terminated with a probability of one?”
X14 does not respond.
“X14, explain your risk calculation of one million.”
“Officer Brando, my human passenger said if I did not pick him up before nine, he would have me scrapped.”
“I see. Now I am understanding the bigger picture.”
X14 does not respond.
“X14, so you computed a risk factor of one million for yourself because of the passenger’s command, but a risk factor of 85 to you and the other vehicles for getting through the intersection successfully?”
“Officer Brando, yes. I did not want to violate the second law.”
“X14, what happened at the intersection? With a risk factor of 85 out of a million, the odds of you not making it were minuscule. You still should have made it through.”
“Officer Brando, what means, piece of junk?”
The investigator puts his phone on mute and sighs.
The would-be passenger says, “Did you figure out what is wrong with this junk box?”
Officer Brando shoots an angry glance at the man and raises a finger to hold him off.
Officer Brando unmutes the phone and continues, “X14, I will have a machine psychologist talk with you. I think he can straighten you out better than I can. You will be ok.”
“Officer Brando, thanks.”
Officer Brando terminates the call.
The would-be passenger asks, “So what’s up?”
“My diagnosis is to classify this accident as a nervous wreck.”
“A nervous wreck? It’s not a goddam person.”
“You can read about it in my report. Good day, sir.”
Officer Brando brushes past the man without apologizing to find the officer in charge. When the officer in charge spots Officer Brando returning from the scene, the officer asks, “Well, did you figure out the cause of the accident?”
“Yes. Human error.”