The Secret History of the Future: The Fault in Our Cars

Economist Podcasts

The Economist

News & Politics, News

4.4 • 4.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 September 2018

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The first pedestrian killed by a car in the western hemisphere was on New York’s Upper West Side in 1899. One newspaper warned that “the automobile has tasted blood.” Today, driverless cars present their own mix of technological promise and potential danger. Can the reaction to that 1899 pedestrian tragedy help us navigate current arguments about safety, blame, commerce, and public space? Guests include: Missy Cummings, Navy fighter pilot and head of the Duke Humans and Autonomy Lab.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There was a car accident in Tempe Arizona back in March of this year.
0:07.0	It was about 10 o'clock at night and a woman was walking her bike across the street and an SUV going about 40 miles an hour, hit her and it killed her.
0:15.0	The loss of life is always a tragedy.
0:18.0	But if the story ended right there, it wouldn't be especially notable because about 6,000 pedestrians get killed every year in the US alone.
0:26.0	There was something new about this accident though.
0:29.0	The person who was in the driver's seat of the SUV didn't have her hands on the wheel, she didn't have her feet on the pedals, and she was barely even looking at the road.
0:37.0	Because this was an experimental self-driving vehicle.
0:41.0	Which made this accident in Tempe the very first of its kind, a pedestrian killed by an autonomous car.
0:48.0	It was all over the national news.
0:50.0	Before an Uber self-driving car in your own country and it was all captured on the Uber.
0:56.0	It used to be distracted by the Uber.
0:59.0	It used to be distracted by the Uber.
1:02.0	The family of the one who was killed immediately sued Uber, the company that owned and operated that vehicle.
1:07.0	Uber pulled all its driverless cars off the road in Tempe and in other cities.
1:12.0	And suddenly this technology that we've been talking about with a lot of optimism, the idea that it would improve mobility,
1:18.0	which transform our cities and it would be environmentally superior.
1:21.0	So now suddenly people are arguing about it with this undercurrent of fear and blame.
1:26.0	And it's very reminiscent of a similar moment 120 years ago when a different new technology that was poised to transform our roads got tied up with tragedy.
1:40.0	From Slate, I'm Seth Stevenson.
1:42.0	From the economist, I'm Tom Standidge.
1:44.0	Welcome to the secret history of the future.
1:57.0	Tom, welcome to the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
	...

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