金融时报:无人驾驶超越人类？

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2021年09月28日

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无人驾驶超越人类？

一位先锋工程师表示：当人类司机出现失误，他会自己从中学习到经验；而一辆无人驾驶的汽车出现失误时，其他每一辆“汽车伙伴”都将从中吸取教训并且避免“无人驾驶司机”必然会超过人类司机——只是时间早晚的问题。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

banal陈腐的；平庸的；老一套的[bə'nɑːl; -'næl]

outlandish古怪的；奇异的[aʊt'lændɪʃ]

commonplace老生常谈；司空见惯的事；普通的东西['kɒmənpleɪs]

flurry疾风；飓风；骚动['flʌrɪ]

sit idle坐视不管

clog up堵塞

smash into猛撞在……

boon恩惠；福利；利益

congestion拥挤；拥塞

envisage正视，面对；想像[ɪn'vɪzɪdʒ; en-]

whizzing发出嗖嗖声；嗖嗖掠过['wiziŋ]

astonishing惊人的；令人惊讶的[ə'stɒnɪʃɪŋ]

throng人群；众多[θrɒŋ]

inevitably不可避免地；必然地[ɪ'nevɪtəblɪ; ɪn'evɪtəblɪ]

backlash反冲；强烈抵制['bæklæʃ]

provoke驱使；激怒；煽动；惹起[prə'vəʊk]

visionary空想家；梦想者；有眼力的人['vɪʒ(ə)n(ə)rɪ]

dichotomy paradox两分法悖论：在两分法悖论中，芝诺要论证的是：一个正在行走的人永远到达不了他的目的地，因此，运动是不可能的。

Stalinist斯大林主义：是指控制苏联和受苏联影响的社会主义阵营内的国家，在约瑟夫·斯大林统治下及其之后的共产主义理论。

Humans are the main obstacle to the driverless revolution （737 words）

By John Thornhill

Brilliant technologies transform the magical into the banal. An idea that seems outlandish to one generation becomes commonplace to the next. So it has been with electricity, space flight and the internet. So it is likely to prove with driverless cars.

The past few weeks have seen a flurry of announcements. Singapore has launched the world's first public trial of a robo-taxi service. Uber and Volvo announced that they would pioneer an autonomous taxi fleet in Pittsburgh within weeks. Ford said it would build its first mass-market driverless car by 2021.

To their backers, autonomous cars cannot arrive quickly enough. Conventional cars are inefficient, dangerous and dirty. They sit idle for 95 per cent of their lives, clogging up city streets and car parks. When moving, they smash into each other, killing 3,500 people every day around the world. Ninety per cent of accidents are caused by human error. Cars pollute the environment, accounting for 45 per cent of oil burnt.

The widespread adoption of fully autonomous and, still better, electric cars could therefore be a massive boon to mankind. It could lead to a far more efficient use of resources, save many lives and reduce congestion and pollution. Futurologists envisage small fleets of shareable, connected cars constantly whizzing around our cities picking up passengers on demand. McKinsey forecasts that 15 per cent of new cars could be fully autonomous by 2030.

But two obstacles block their widespread adoption. The first remains technological. For all the astonishing advances made in recent years, it is phenomenally difficult to replicate humans as sensory beings.

How does a car distinguish between a plastic bag blowing across a road and a runaway dog? How does a car nudge its way through a throng of people outside a football stadium?

Engineers argue that the genius of self-driving cars is their connectedness. “When human drivers make a mistake the individual learns from it,” says one Silicon Valley pioneer. “When a self-driving car makes a mistake then every other car will learn from a mistake once an engineer has fixed it. It is just a matter of time before our technology surpasses human capacity.”

But sceptics compare autonomous car technology with Zeno's dichotomy paradox: every leap will take us halfway to our destination without ever reaching it.

No matter how hard the technology proves, it may be the easier part of the puzzle. A stiffer challenge remains the human. Even when manufacturers and software engineers develop fully autonomous cars in which they have total trust, it will still take many years, if not decades, for them to be freely embraced by governments and consumers.

First, there is the instinctive human resistance to handing over control to a robot, especially given fears of cyber-hacking. Second, for many drivers cars are an extension of their identity, a mechanical symbol of independence, control and freedom. They will not abandon them lightly.

Third, robots will always be held to far higher safety standards than humans. They will inevitably cause accidents. They will also have to be programmed to make a calculation that could kill their passengers or bystanders to minimise overall loss of life. This will create a fascinating philosophical sub-school of algorithmic morality. “Many of us are afraid that one reckless act will cause an accident that causes a backlash and shuts down the industry for a decade,” says the Silicon Valley engineer. “That would be tragic if you could have saved tens of thousands of lives a year.”

Fourth, the deployment of autonomous vehicles could destroy millions of jobs. Their rapid introduction is certain to provoke resistance. There are 3.5m professional lorry drivers in the US.

Fifth, the insurance industry and legal community have to wrap their heads around some tricky liability issues. In what circumstances is the owner, car manufacturer or software developer responsible for damage?

Some governments, such as those of Singapore, China and the UK, as well as several states in the US are creating permissive regulatory and legal environments. Regulators can certainly speed adoption by approving designated lanes for autonomous cars, for example, and devising international safety rules and standards. Conversely, politicians may yet succumb to the pressure of public fears and vested interests and frustrate the roll out of self-driving cars.

Autonomous car visionaries may soon be able to perfect the technology. But their success may be determined by how good they are — in Stalinist terminology — as engineers of human souls.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.When will Ford build its first mass-market driverless car?

A.2017

B.2020

C.2021

D.2025

答案(1)

2.Which is not right about the conventional cars?

A.inefficient

B.dangerous

C.fast speed

D.dirty