当谈到老化问题时，自动驾驶汽车不会拯救我们

当谈到老化问题时，自动驾驶汽车不会拯救我们

Five years ago, MNN's Jim Motavalli wrote that Seniors, not hipsters, will get self-driving cars first. He wasn't alone in thinking this; Jane Gould, author of "Aging in Suburbia," thought autonomous vehicles would mean freedom for older people, who would be "able to transverse the vast, spread distances of the suburbs in a way that has never been economical or practical for public transportation."

五年前，MNN的吉姆·莫塔瓦利写道，首先将拥有自动驾驶汽车的将是老年人，而不是潮人。他并不是唯一这样想的人;《郊区的老龄化》一书的作者简·古尔德认为，自动驾驶汽车将意味着老年人的自由，他们将“能够以一种从未在公共交通中实现过的经济或实用的方式，跨越郊区广阔而分散的距离”。

Why worry about driving when a self-driving taxi can take care of it? (Photo: Екатерина Волкова/Wikimedia Commons)

Motavalli was far more restrained and circumspect than most of the writers at the time; most predicted full automation by 2020, while Jim wrote "I've been, and remain, skeptical that autonomous cars as people imagine them — sitting in the back, playing with your phone, with the vehicle in charge — will happen before 2030."

莫塔瓦利比当时的大多数作家都要克制和谨慎得多;大多数人预测到2020年将实现完全自动化，而吉姆写道:“我一直对人们想象中的自动驾驶汽车——坐在后座，玩手机，由汽车负责——能否在2030年前实现持怀疑态度。”

I was also a skeptic, suggesting that if it happens at all, they will be very expensive and that "AVs might make it a little less ugly for a special few."

我也持怀疑态度，我认为，如果真的发生这种情况，它们将非常昂贵，而且“AVs可能会让一些特殊的人不那么难看。”

It turns out we were both probably probably overly optimistic. To sit in the back and play with your phone, you need a car with Level 5 Autonomy, where "the vehicle is capable of performing all driving functions under all conditions." Maybe an older person could get away with Level 4, where the car might not be able to go everywhere at all times.

事实证明，我们俩可能都过于乐观了。要坐在后排玩手机，你需要一辆拥有5级自动驾驶功能的汽车，“这种汽车能够在任何条件下执行所有驾驶功能。”也许一个年纪较大的人可以逃过四级考试，在四级考试中，汽车可能无法随时随地行驶。

We are barely at Level 2; it will be a long time before we reach levels 4 and 5. (Photo: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

The main benefit of self-driving cars was going to be for people who couldn't drive anymore, and they would need at least Level 4 capabilities. But Level 2, Partial Automation, or Level 3, Conditional Automation, in which the driver must be ready to take control, would still be pretty good for older drivers, so these improvements could still be a big help — or so we thought. Now, even that line of thinking is being questioned.

自动驾驶汽车的主要好处将是为那些不能再开车的人准备的，他们将需要至少四级的能力。但是第2级，部分自动化，或者第3级，条件自动化，其中驱动程序必须准备好控制，对于老驱动程序来说仍然是非常好的，所以这些改进仍然是一个很大的帮助——至少我们是这样认为的。现在，甚至连这种想法也受到了质疑。

So we may see autonomous cars in closed, protected places like the Villages in Floridathat can be mapped in great detail, but for the rest of us? It's going to take a while, and it's going to be expensive. As Thomas Sedran, who's in charge of evaluating Volkswagen’s autonomous strategy in commercial vehicles, explained to Reuters:

所以我们可能会在封闭的、受保护的地方看到自动驾驶汽车，比如佛罗里达州的村庄，这些地方可以被详细地绘制出来，但对我们其他人来说呢?这需要一段时间，而且会很贵。正如负责评估大众商用车自主战略的托马斯•塞德兰(Thomas Sedran)向路透社(Reuters)解释的那样:

... sensors, processors and software for so-called Level 3 cars already cost about 50,000 euros ($56,460). ... Even if this were achieved, the cost of high-definition maps and cloud computing add hundreds of millions of euros in annual costs for fleets of robotaxis or delivery vans.

…用于所谓的3级车的传感器、处理器和软件已经花费了大约5万欧元(56,460美元)。即使实现了这一目标，高清地图和云计算的成本也会给机器人出租车或货车车队每年增加数亿欧元的成本。

There's a thing called the Gartner Hype Cycle, where everyone gets really excited about a new technology and then we find out that it's a lot harder and a lot more expensive than anyone thought. You then slide into the trough of disillusionment (where we are now), do more work and eventually reach the plateau of productivity, where the technology sort of works.

有一个叫做Gartner Hype Cycle的东西，每个人都对一项新技术感到兴奋，然后我们发现它比任何人想象的都要困难和昂贵得多。然后，你就会陷入幻灭的低谷(就像我们现在所处的境地)，做更多的工作，最终达到生产率的高原，这时，技术发挥了作用。

We are deep in the trough of disillusionment. (Photo: Jeremy Kemp/Wikimedia Commons)

But that all takes time, investment, technological improvement, regulatory changes, and eventual acceptance. I suspect that baby boomers hoping that self-driving cars will help them age in place are in for a very long wait.

但这一切都需要时间、投资、技术改进、监管改革，以及最终的接受。我怀疑，婴儿潮时期出生的人希望自动驾驶汽车能帮助他们老去，但他们要等很长时间。