https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-self-driving-cars-will-save-countless-lives-but-they-will-kill-some-of-you-first [search-614] Search [ ] * Internet Tendency * The Store * Books Division * Quarterly Concern * The Believer * Donate [q2krp6ge2y] McSweeney's Internet Tendency Daily humor almost every day since 1998. Daily humor almost every day since 1998. [9e92ohn7yx] The Believer has returned Subscribe today to climb aboard this unstoppable train of a literary journal. September 5, 2023 Our Self-Driving Cars Will Save Countless Lives, But They Will Kill Some of You First by Mike Langley I'm going to say something you wouldn't expect from the CEO of a car company: America's roads are a warzone. Over 40,000 traffic fatalities in 2021. Millions of car accidents per year. Our streets and highways are dangerous, and it's clear that the current system isn't working. Years of preventable tragedies inspired me to start this company, and I'm proud to say that our self-driving cars will someday save countless lives. But, and I want to be upfront about this, they will kill some of you first. We all think we're above-average drivers, but let's face it: humans make mistakes. We get tired. We get angry. We drink. Combine any of those with an automobile, and you've got a recipe for tragedy. Our autonomous vehicles don't make human mistakes. Instead, they make errors that only a machine could make, like confusing a cyclist for an open roadway, or mixing up a pedestrian for an open roadway, or making a small oopsie and thinking that playing children are an open roadway. Nobody's perfect. With state-of-the-art sensor technology combined with our proprietary artificial intelligence, our vehicles will be the safest thing on the road. Imagine a world in which every vehicle you see is self-driving, a whole fleet of interconnected cars communicating with each other, making minute adjustments in speed and following distance, updating based on road surface and weather conditions, and doing everything in their power to keep people safe. Now, imagine the gap between that world and the one we've got, and imagine that before we perfect the technology, there's going to be a couple of years where cars are rocketing into highway embankments at seventy miles per hour due to completely impossible-to-predict events, like a dog running into the road, or drizzle. Just like human beings, our cars will have to learn, and yeah, we're not going to get it right every time. Sometimes green means go, like a traffic light, but sometimes green means stop, like a person's green shirt. You can imagine how frustrating this is for our machine-learning experts. Why was the person wearing a green shirt? Didn't they realize that's the same color as a traffic light? This stuff isn't easy, and before we get to a world with zero traffic deaths, we'll--briefly, I hope--have to increase the number of traffic deaths just a little. We feel really bad about that. In a way, the people our cars mow down are doing just as much as our highly paid programmers and engineers to create the utopian, safe streets of tomorrow. Each person who falls under our front bumper teaches us something valuable about how humans act in the real world. This pedestrian walked in front of the vehicle right after the walk signal had stopped. Another person's tie-dye shirt bewildered and overwhelmed our car's sensors, triggering the now-shuttered "getaway mode." A third person, our car just didn't like for some reason. Haven't figured that one out yet. But we're confident that with a couple of thousand more data points like these, we can put an end to traffic-related fatalities. You'll notice our cars out on the road. Sometimes, thanks to our whisper-quiet electric motors, you won't notice them until they're milliseconds away. In the moments before impact, we hope you'll take the time to appreciate the classic lines and slick engineering, and join us in envisioning a world without car crashes. Here's to a safer tomorrow. * Tesla * Elon Musk * Cars * Self-Driving Cars Please help support our writers and keep our site ad-free by becoming a patron today! Become a patron Sleep Tips for New Parents from the Sleep Paralysis Demon Welcome to Your Menopausal Vagina Suggested Reads * March 25, 2002 Actual Questions and Comments Overheard at the DMV by B.R. Cohen * October 15, 2009 Bob Dylan GPS Voice Quotes by Dan Wilbur * March 17, 2005 To Change the Carburetor by Jenn Guitart * February 1, 2012 Your Dreamcatcher is Clogged Again by Evan Johnston Trending 1. August 28, 2023 What Is and Is Not a Vibe by Laura Lane 2. August 25, 2023 Introducing Our University's New Executive Vice President of Saving Money by Talia Argondezzi 3. August 17, 2023 An Open Letter to the Pair of Gen-Z Men in the Northeast Regional Quiet Car Loudly Discussing Pitchfork's 100 Best Albums of All Time by Elizabeth Bastos 4. September 1, 2023 Are You an Exhausted Parent of Small Children or a Common Raccoon? by Kristen Mulrooney and Matthew Mulrooney Recently * September 8, 2023 My Saturday Self Versus My Sunday Self by Tom Ellison * September 8, 2023 Universally Acknowledged Truths for High School Teachers by Rebecca Turkewitz * September 7, 2023 For Just Forty Hours a Week of Intense Work Outside Your Full-Time Job, You Too Can Make Passive Income by Eli Grober * September 7, 2023 Types of Acting Still Permitted Under SAG-AFTRA's Strike Rules by Tom Smyth [eyes_store] A New York Times Bestseller. 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