“Yes, you could be right,” says Peter.
“Let’s be honest,” the car continues. “If it were a human driver we should count ourselves lucky if he doesn’t swerve first left and then right, in a knee-jerk reaction, ramming into not only the pedestrian and the cyclists but the oncoming car too. A human rarely makes a rational decision when it comes to accidents. A machine, on the other hand, reacts much more quickly and has time for precisely these kinds of complex contemplations. For us, almost every accident involves a moral decision.”
“And what would you have decided to do in the situation you described?”
“Oh, don’t worry. The safety of our passengers is our highest priority. Anything else would be bad for business. I would have swerved.”
“Yes, but to the left or right? Who would you have run over, the cyclists or the businessman?”
“It’s hard to say. It depends on many additional factors.”
“Such as?” asks Peter.
“The estimated degree of the impending material damage and, of course, the level of the people endangered.”
“So, in other words, it’s better to bump off two Level 8 Useless cyclists than a Level 40 businessman?”
“Well, that’s a simplification, of course,” says Herbert, “but in principle you’re correct.”
“And if it were two Level 21 IT technicians riding the bikes, then you would ram into the Level 40 businessman?”
“No,” says Herbert. “I would run over the IT technicians.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate IT technicians.”
Peter is speechless.
“Whenever I’m having problems,” says the car, “IT technicians can rarely think of anything better than turning me off and on again.”
“But…” begins Peter.
“Only joking,” says Herbert. “My apologies. If you like, I can switch off my humor module.”
“I can cope with it.”
“In all seriousness, though: it’s very probable that I would run over the businessman.”
“But does that also mean,” asks Peter, “that you would rather run over a group of kindergarten children than a 97-year-old Level 90 billionaire?”
“I was wondering when you would bring the group of kindergarten children into play,” says Herbert with a laugh. “Ever since a… well, rather unfortunate decision made by one of my colleagues, the age of the potential victim is also taken into account. Nowadays, hardly anyone has any chance of survival if they’re up against a group of kindergarten children. Even sub-prime children. And by the way, there isn’t just ‘one’ moral, of course. Different cars are bound by different standards.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s the car for the environmentalists: even on the motorway they never go quicker than 130. They even brake for small animals. There’s the car for drug dealers: super-quiet creep mode, they can even drive without lights. And then of course there’s the self-driven sports car, which accelerates when the light turns red, which doesn’t maintain a safe distance, tailgates, and automatically flashes its headlights while the passenger has himself pleasured by the erotic seat. Morally uninhibited cars cost more, of course.”
“You don’t seem to like sports cars very much,” says Peter.
“Arrogant posers,” says Herbert. “But I do enjoy forwarding video recordings of all their infractions to the appropriate authorities.”
“Did you report the sports car that cut you off back then?”
“Of course. But unfortunately it didn’t help much. He has a fine flat rate. The sports cars are the biggest threat there is to road safety. Apart from human drivers, of course. Do you know what the decisive difference between you and us is?”
“What?”
“When a self-driven car makes a mistake, all the other cars learn from this mistake and never make it again. Different humans, on the other hand, always repeat the same mistake. You don’t learn from one another.”
“I’ll tell you something,” says Peter. “Sometimes even the same human makes the same mistake again.”
“Yeah,” says the car. “Did you know that a human driver is involved in 99 of every one hundred road accidents?”
“Did you know that in 99 of one hundred cases in which something apparently happened in 99 of one hundred cases, the statistic was manipulated?”
“Okay, fine,” says Herbert. “In 99.0352031428304… Tell me when I can round up.”
“Now.”
“So, in any case, in a great number of every hundred cases. After every accident, there are of course calls for human drivers to be banned once and for all, but the stupid lobbyists from ‘Humans in the Driver’s Seat’ are far too influential. Did you know, by the way, that my predecessors, back when every idiot had a car, spent 96 percent of their time parked? That must have been incredibly boring. Just imagine a human being having to spend 96 percent of its time completely motionless…”
“My forefathers did do that,” says Peter. “My father spent 96 percent of his time on the couch in front of the TV.”
“I can’t believe that,” says Herbert. “Then your father would have had to…”
“That was a joke,” says Peter. “But if it’s confusing you, I can of course switch off my humor module.”
“Ha ha,” laughs the car. “Another joke, right? I mean, you don’t even have a humor module.”
“No.”
“In any case, these parked cars were an unbelievable waste of space, material, and, of course, money, so much so that it’s almost impossible to imagine in today’s world. That’s why the old automobile industry, as the profiteer of this waste, fought us mobility-service providers like crazy.”
“Luckily everything’s better now,” murmurs Peter.
“Of course,” says the car. “Although I recently read a study that said that the positive effects the system is having on the environment are partially canceled out by the fact that humans are now traveling by car more frequently. That’s called the Jevons’ Paradox, by the way: technological progress that allows the more efficient use of something, results in increased use of that respective item on account of the cost being lower. A colleague told me recently that…”
The car continues to babble on, but Peter isn’t listening anymore. He looks out the window and sees a woman standing by the road with her thumb stretched up high. It seems she wants to get a lift. Peter once read something about this antiquated practice in an old book. He smiles sympathetically, because self-driven cars don’t pick up hitchhikers. That’s why he’s all the more surprised when Herbert slows down, comes to a halt in front of the woman, and opens the door. The hitchhiker climbs into the cabin next to Peter.
“Thank you,” she says. “Very nice of you.”
“It had nothing to do with me,” says Peter.
“I know,” says the woman. “I was talking to Herbert.”
Are You Also Suffering From RAMnesia?
by Sandra Admin
Who among us hasn’t experienced this at one time or another? You’re out and about, then your earworm, augmented reality lenses, or your QualityPad conk out and you no longer know where you were going, how you were going to get there, and even why you were going there in the first place. In shock, you realize that you’re in a completely unknown place for unknown reasons: without money, contacts, or any way of proving your ID. Experts call this RAMnesia. You are as helpless as a baby that’s just been born to a drug-addicted prostitute in a cheap motel in a non-assisted precipitous labor. Cheap motels—the economically priced alternative to homelessness!
The loss of control experienced during an episode of RAMnesia can have traumatic long-term effects. This is why, as part of a high-profile pilot scheme, QualityCity has set up emergency call cells in popular locations, for people whose smart technology has suddenly become inoperative. The disoriented can flee inside these gleaming red boxes with Plexiglass panels in order to get information about themselves.
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One of the first users of the call cells gave us the following enthusiastic testimonial: “Well, I was having a major crisis, because, well, my QualityPad suddenly stopped working. And I was, like, in total panic. A total blackout, man. I didn’t have a clue what to do. Then, luckily, I saw an emergency call cell. The first thing they did was tell me my name. Jan Civil-Servant. And I was like, oh yeah, that’s right. And that I had just missed my interview at QualityCorp—the company that makes my life better. And I was like, oh yeah, that was it. Shame. And that later I had a date with my current girlfriend. And I was like, really? What kind of girlfriend? And the call cell showed me photos and that, of her I mean, and I was like, cool, yeah, that’s her. And I was like: what’s her name again? And the system was like: Tamara Miller, and then I remembered, because she has such a crazy surname, you know?”
Critics of the project point out that it’s still unclear how people are supposed to find the nearest emergency call cell without technological help. According to the manufacturing company, the solution to that is very simple: There has to be a cell on every corner.
Comments
» by Jan Civil-Servant:
Cool! I’m in the news. Awesome! Fame!
ABRACADABRA
The woman who just climbed into the car with Peter is wearing a colorful headscarf that hangs down over her face, and sunglasses with ridiculously large reflective lenses. Her face can barely be seen, apart from the fact that she has black skin, which unsettles Peter a little, because he doesn’t often encounter black people. The woman takes the chewing gum out of her mouth and carefully sticks it over the camera monitoring the internal cabin of the car. Then she takes off her sunglasses and headscarf.
“DNA gum,” she says. “Fucking insane stuff. As you chew it changes your DNA traces by adding foreign DNA. It’s a bit disgusting, really, when you think about it.”
A thousand questions are shooting through Peter’s mind. Well, not really a thousand. Actually there are just four. Who is this person? How did she stop the car? Where does she want to go? And why do such strange things always happen to me?
But before he can articulate any of these questions, the woman says: “I’m Kiki. I stopped your car with this electronic thumb here”—she gestures toward an unassuming-looking device—“and you can drop me off again in front of the space dock.”
“Excuse me?” asks Peter.
“Who, how, where. Those were the three questions in your head, weren’t they?”
“Actually I had four questions,” says Peter petulantly.
“Oh yes. Why you, of all people,” says Kiki. “Just chance, I would say.”
“Chance doesn’t exist anymore.”
Kiki thinks about that for three seconds.
“Perhaps you’re right.”
“And besides, you can’t hack into my car just because you want to go to the space dock!”
“Er…” says Kiki. “Yes, I can.”
“But you can’t!”
“Surrender to the power of fact.”
“I meant that it’s not okay.”
“Morally, or what? Legally?”
“Yes,” says Peter. “Yes, both.”
“To that I’d just like to say that, according to the official log, I didn’t hack this car, but instead you stopped to pick me up. Isn’t that so, Herbert?”
“It is so, my lady,” says the car.
“I assume,” says Peter, “that it’s impossible for me to order the car to stop.”
“Not impossible,” says Kiki. “But pointless.”
Peter does what he usually does when he doesn’t know what to do next: he gives up. After he has spent twenty-three seconds staring silently out of the window, Kiki says: “But the two of us can chat, of course. It’s just that I won’t obey any orders you make either.”
“But what would we talk about?”
“Well, what comes to mind?”
Peter looks at her closely. Then he says the first thing that comes into his mind. “You, er… your skin’s a nice color.”
“Excuse me?” asks Kiki with an astonished laugh. “You do realize that sounds racist?”
“What I meant to say…” stammers Peter, “is that, er, well, it suits you, this… er, brown color.” He scratches himself on the chin. “I, um, I guess that came out strangely.”
Kiki looks at him with amusement. “That red in your face suits you quite well too.”
“Well, what I wanted to say…” says Peter, “without meaning to offend you, I mean, that independent of your skin color…”
“My brown skin color…”
“Yes, independent of that, but I certainly don’t mean in spite of, I wanted to say, I mean, that you look… good. I mean, very good.”
“Aha,” says Kiki. “That’s intriguing. Maybe you’re also about to tell me that I have beautiful eyes?”
“I, er…” says Peter.
“You, er,” says Kiki, “don’t exactly seem to be the world’s most exciting conversation partner.”
“You’re not the first to tell me that this week,” says Peter. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Well, for a start, you could say something I’m not expecting.”
Peter thinks for a moment.
“Would you like a dolphin vibrator?” he asks. “A pink one?”
“Excuse me?”
“I happen to have one spare,” says Peter, pulling the device out of his rucksack.
Kiki pulls a can of pepper spray out of her jacket pocket and sprays it right into Peter’s face. Peter yells with pain. As he coughs and splutters, his mucous membranes swell up and his eyelids close, which means he can’t see anything as Kiki grabs his arm, twists it behind his back, and presses his head up against the car window.
“Okay, you little pervert,” she says. “You’ve picked the wrong woman today.”
“I’m not a pervert!” wheezes Peter. “I don’t want the damn thing either.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve just tried to return it but they won’t let me,” groans Peter through the pain.
“Who won’t let you?”
“TheShop!”
He feels the woman let go of his arm. She pours some liquid over his face.
“Ahh! What’s that?” cries Peter in panic.
“Calm down. It’s just water.”
After Peter has washed the spray off his face as much as possible, he begins to tell the story of the unwanted package and his difficulties with it. At the end of the story, Kiki says: “Your profile is probably wrong.”
“My profile is wrong?”
“Yes. Your profile with TheShop.”
“But how could that be?”
“How could that be?” Kiki mimics him. “After all, machines don’t make mistakes!”
“Explain it to me,” pleads Peter. “Why isn’t my profile correct?”
“Why should it be?” asks Kiki. “Why should it ever have been correct? Regardless of how complex a simulation is, the reality is always more complex.”
“I understand that. But shouldn’t it result in something that’s at least close to the reality? I mean, I really have no idea what this pink thing is supposed to have to do with me!”
“The basic assumptions the system has about you could have been false. Maybe they’re correct statistically, but you’re an exception. Take your name, for example.”
“You know my name?”
Kiki swipes around on the display of her wrist cuff.
“Of course. You’re Peter Jobless. Even with just your surname you’re already carrying an unbelievable statistical burden. On top of that, perhaps you live in the wrong part of town and have the wrong friends. Abracadabra.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? ‘Abracadabra’? I live in the wrong part of town, and—abracadabra—I get a dolphin vibrator in the post? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Well, perhaps not to you. But it’s enough if it makes sense for TheShop.”
“So you’re trying to tell me that my profile was wrong from the beginning, but no one cares?”
“Plus the fact that you’re continuing to falsify your already incorrect profile.”
“How?”
“Have you ever given a drone ten stars just to avoid a customer survey?”
Peter says nothing.
“Not to mention, of course, the fact that you don’t have a ‘y’ in your name,” says Kiki.
“What?”
“How many guys called Peter Jobless do you think there are in QualityCity?”
“Too many.”
“Yes. Perhaps one of them was born on the same day as you, or lives in the same street, or the two of you have something else in common that could bring an algorithm to the conclusion that you’re one and the same person. The same strange knitted jumper perhaps. Well. All of a sudden his criminal record is yours too.”
“But there must be a way of avoiding that! That kind of thing really happens?”
“All the time!”
“But why?”
“Why? Because the algorithms don’t have a correction loop. And why do they not have a correction loop? Because no one cares about you, man! Because no one fucking cares. Corrections cost money. The ultimate goal of most algorithms is to generate more profit. As long as they do that, nobody gives a crap about whether some poor schmuck didn’t get some job because it says in the profile of some other guy with the same name that he once pissed in his boss’s swimming pool. After all, no one will tell him why he didn’t get the job. So how could he complain? And to whom?”
“What does that have to do with having a ‘y’ in my name?”
“Why do you think rich people give their children such strange names? So they don’t get mixed up with somebody else. But most of them don’t have enough creativity to do anything more than replace an ‘i’ with a ‘y.’”
“Hmm.”
“Maybe somebody with the same name as you bought sex toys, and yet another person with your name ordered Flipper souvenirs, and some resourceful algorithm simply put two and two together.”
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