無人駕駛汽車離你有多近

Informed conversations about self-driving cars no longer are about feasibility. New key talking points are "When?" and "Which automakers first?" and "Who will be responsible when an accident happens?"

消息靈通人士關於自動駕駛汽車的深談已經與可行性無關了，現在大家關注的焦點是“什麼時候上市？”，“哪家汽車廠商會首先推出這種車？”以及“如果發生事故，責任到底在哪方？”

Nissan has said it will sell a driverless car by 2020. IHS forecast several models available by 2025. Both of these are guesses -- but they indicate how fast the technology is progressing.

日產汽車（Nissan）已經表示將於2020年銷售無人駕駛汽車。IHS諮詢公司預計，到2025年，市場將推出好幾款此類車型。這兩個消息都有猜測的性質——但它們表明，這項技術的發展是何等神速。

What seemed unimaginable a decade ago becomes more practical, comprehensible, and real by the day. Google's (GOOG) self-driving Toyota Prius (TM) has logged hundreds of thousands of miles without incident on California roads. Most automakers are testing self-driving cars on tracks and -- lately, as I experienced earlier this week in Las Vegas -- in traffic.

十年前還顯得那麼不可思議的事情現在已經變得十分可行，可以理解，而且無比真實了。谷歌（Google）那輛自動駕駛豐田普銳斯（Toyota Prius）已經在加州的公路上安全行駛了上萬英里，沒有出過任何事故。大多數汽車廠商正在賽道上測試自動駕駛汽車，同時——最近，正如我本週初在拉斯維加斯體驗的——也在真實路況中開展這種測試。

The Audi A7 equipped with "traffic jam assist" was programmed to drive itself slowly in heavy traffic at no more than 40 miles per hour. (Dr. Bjorn Giesler, head of Audi's project team, was behind the wheel.) The car was loaded with cameras, sensors, and a special device that monitors a driver's eyes to ensure he or she doesn't fall asleep at the wheel. In that event, the car will safely slow down, stop, and call for help.

奧迪A7搭載了一套“堵車輔助系統”，它能在嚴重擁堵的車流中以每小時不超過40英里的時速自動駕駛（測試時奧迪項目組組長比約恩?吉斯勒博士就坐在駕駛席上）。這輛車上裝了各種攝像頭、傳感器和一套特殊設備，能監測駕駛者眼睛的情況，以確保司機開車時不要睡着。如果司機真的睡着了，這輛車就會穩穩地減速、停止行駛，請求援助。

Think of a driverless car as a robot. For Audi and other automakers, a key question is how much of the driving should be done by the robot, how much by the driver. The driver decides. Executives at Audi and other automakers say the driver, in any case, must remain engaged and attentive, ready to take over in the event of the unexpected: a car travelling the wrong way or out of control, for example.

大家不妨把無人駕駛汽車看成是機器人。對奧迪公司（Audi）和其他汽車廠商來說，關鍵問題是駕駛中到底有多少該由機器人來完成，多少該由駕駛者來完成。這其實最終還是取決於駕駛者自己。奧迪和其他品牌的高管都表示，駕駛者無論如何都必須保持介入和警覺，發生開錯道或失控這類意外時要能隨時重新接管車輛。

Audi executives won't use the word "driverless;" instead they speak about "piloted" driving. Other auto executives talk about "autonomous" or "assisted" driving. Only Google is adamant that it wants a driverless car, one that can help the elderly and the blind, as well as anyone who would rather be reading a book.

奧迪的高管從來不用“無人駕駛”這個字眼，他們說的是“引導式”駕駛。其他品牌的高管說的則是“自動”或“輔助”駕駛。只有谷歌堅稱自己要研發的就是無人駕駛汽車，也就是能幫助老年人和盲人，以及那些寧可在車上讀書的人的自動駕駛汽車。

Today's Audis and many other brands already may be equipped with features like adaptive cruise control that keeps a car a safe distance and constant speed behind cars ahead. Several have dynamic lane assist, which warn when a car is leaving a lane inadvertently -- and can gently steer the car back.

如今奧迪和其他很多品牌可能都搭載了自適應巡航控制系統這類配置，能讓汽車與前車保持安全距離，同時維持勻速行駛。還有幾個品牌採用了動態車道輔助系統，車輛無意中偏離車道時能發出預警，同時輕輕地讓車回到正確的車道上。

Given a multitude of sensors, weather conditions, road changes, pedestrians, and other vehicles -- robotic logic must be able to decide safely and instantaneously whether to turn, accelerate, or brake. The software, hardware, and algorithms that sift all this information are getting cheaper, smaller, and faster. Last year, the control systems filled the trunk of an Audi vehicle; this year, custom chips that function as the brain sit on a board about the size of a book.

在大量傳感器、各種天氣條件、路況變化、各種行人和其他車輛並存的情況下——機器人邏輯必須能安全及時地做出轉彎、加速和剎車的決定。而相關的軟硬件，以及處理所有這些信息的算法現在都日益便宜、小型化並且運算速度更快。去年奧迪試驗車輛的後備箱裏還塞滿了控制系統；而今年，作爲車輛大腦、位於儀表板上的定製芯片只有一本書那麼大。

State and federal regulators still must decide under what circumstances to permit so-called autonomous systems or, perhaps, whether to mandate features like adaptive cruise control or lane assist, if they are deemed to make automobile travel more safe.

現在，美國各州和聯邦政府的監管者還是得決定在什麼情況下可以允許採用這些所謂的自動系統。或者說，如果這些系統確實被認爲可使汽車更安全的話，是否應要求廠商都標配自適應巡航控制或車道輔助系統。

Auto insurance today is a very straightforward process. But what about when a piloted car hits a pedestrian? Or when a truck hits a piloted car? Once piloted driving becomes more common, real-world experience will show how many accidents happen. Actuaries have statistical tools for assessing how much accidents will cost and, therefore, how much everyone will pay in insurance premiums.

如今的汽車保險流程非常簡單。但是，如果自動駕駛汽車撞了行人怎麼辦？或者說，如果卡車撞了自動駕駛汽車又怎麼辦？一旦自動駕駛汽車變得日益普及，實際情況就會告訴我們到底會發生多少事故。保險精算師手裏有統計工具，能算出這些事故會造成多大損失，也能算出每個人要付多少保險費。

As for legal responsibility, a question at an Audi press conference summed it up this way: "If a car without a driver has an accident, who is responsible: the driver? The owner of the car? Audi?" No one has answered the questions definitively, but it's a good bet that driverless cars will be involved in far fewer accidents than ones with -- otherwise, why have them?

至於說法律責任，奧迪新聞發佈會的一個問題是這麼概括的：“如果一輛沒有駕駛者的車出了事故，到底該誰負責：司機？車主？還是奧迪？”沒人有確切答案。但可以肯定的是，無人駕駛汽車出事的概率會比傳統汽車要低——否則幹嘛要研發它們呢？