ZapCar: Original Story
by Ellie Haberl; Illustrated by B. Hastings
Gabe sat in the backseat looking at the car radio app on his phone so he could be sure he turned the volume up just as Margo opened the car door and sat down next to him. “Ugh. The Useful Star Dust Experiment?” She smiled and groaned, “This band again? Are you in some kind of a competition to prove you can endure torture? What will you win? New friends, I hope?”
“It’s an acquired taste, Margo. You’re one week away from loving them! Don’t give up now!” Gabe smiled, and continued working on the song lyrics he was writing for his first hour music theory class. Margo, Gabe and Zeke had been carpooling to school together since elementary school, and Gabe had been choosing terrible but very hip music from the backseat for almost as long. Zeke and Margo had learned to humor him put up with the music that sounded like it had been composed by accident, and give him a thumbs up and an encouraging but fake, “Hmmm…..great sound.”
With Margo so focused on completing her last few math problems and Gabe absorbed in writing music, they didn’t notice that the ZAPCAR had turned into Zeke’s driveway to make its last pick-up before heading to school, almost hitting Zeke’s parked bike. This was a flaw in the model, the way the ZAPCAR couldn’t always see objects the way it saw people. Zeke jumped into the car, and laughed, “Whoa, easy there fancy new model ZAPCAR. We almost just had a live episode of the new reality tv show Transportation: Survival of the Fittest.” Gabe laughed, “Speaking of the new ZAPCAR model. Have you heard that neutral mode isn’t used in these updated ZAPCARS? Maybe it would pick your bike over you, if it knew how much that sucker is worth!” Margo frowned. “I heard about this! Removing the neutral mode in ZAPCARS means that in cases where the car can’t stop in time, it will make decisions on where to steer based on the age, health, and criminal record of the person in the road. Seems like a recipe for disaster, inequity, and a serious discrimination lawsuit.” Margo looked upset, but glanced at the clock and quickly returned to her math homework, while the ZAPCAR sped away to school.
Ever since ZAPCARS stopped needing human drivers, Zeke loved looking at passengers in nearby cars to see them smiling and laughing together, relaxing as they watched a movie or worked on a project. He also loved communicating with nearby cars, and he particularly liked playing a game of Pictionary on the window glass with the car next to him.
Zeke recently read a headline that declared that ZAPCARS had almost eliminated two of the country’s biggest health problems: loneliness and car accidents. It didn't feel like an exaggeration to him. Gabe could come over to his house anytime, even though his vision impairment prevented him from driving, and Zeke’s grandparents could come to all of his baseball games even though they weren’t able to drive anymore. ZAPCARS had made his life immeasurably easier, and he knew that was true for so many people.
Their ZAPCAR made its way through the busy city, slowing as it reached a red light at a crowded intersection. Zeke continued to people watch. He noticed a long purple scarf blowing in the wind. It looked familiar – was that the woman from the corner store? He saw the stoplight click from red to green. He felt the car begin to accelerate through the intersection. Suddenly, he noticed a father and three small children step into the crosswalk. The man was carrying a big grocery bag and didn’t see the electric neon sign that said, Don’t Walk. Zeke wanted to stop the ZAPCAR, but the override brake was out of reach. He yelled to Gabe and Margo, “Hit the brake!!!” but there wasn’t enough time. The ZAPCAR swerved away from the children, toward the sidewalk. He wanted to close his eyes but he couldn’t, and he would always regret this instinct to look. Margo screamed as the ZAPCAR hit something and slammed to a stop.
Gabe shouted, “What was it? What? What did we hit?” Margo’s screams nearly drowned out his desperate questions. Only Zeke had seen. He moved fast, throwing open the door and running toward the person he knew would be lying in the road in front of their ZAPCAR. He fell onto his knees next to the woman in the purple scarf. Zeke could tell she had a broken leg, and watched as the rescue team pulled up in an ambulance and moved her onto a stretcher.
Zeke backed away. He saw the small children and man standing on the sidewalk, groceries spilled across the concrete. The children cried as their father comforted them. Zeke looked for Gabe and Margo and finally saw them crouched on the ground by a tree. Gabe had his arms around Margo as she cried and repeated over and over, “I tried to reach the override brake. I tried. I couldn’t reach it in time.” Gabe repeated, “I know. I know you tried. I tried too.”
Zeke stumbled over to them, sinking to the ground. His voice raspy from the shock, he said “Margo, it’s not your fault.” He whispered the rest in disbelief, “The neutral mode was removed. The ZAPCAR knew it wouldn’t be able to stop in time. It was programmed to decide what or who to hit.” He was crying now, too. Angry tears flooded his eyes as the realization dawned: the ZAPCAR had weighed the lives at stake and chosen to save the children crossing the street.
Margo pulled her face from Gabe’s chest and Zeke was terrified by what he saw, his own feeling of horror mirrored in hers as they both realized at the same time the second part of the ZAPCAR’s calculation.
The car could have swerved to hit the tree.
But the algorithm knew their ages.
And they were children too.
Word count: 1143
Developed by AI Ethics Project 2020.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Citation: Haberl, E. (2020). Zap Car. V.1.0.Illustrated by B. Hastings. In B. Dalton and T. Yeh (Eds.), AI Stories Series. Available INSERT URL.
Acknowledgement: This work is supported by National Science Foundation Stem+C Award #1934151 to T. Yeh, S. Forsyth and B. Dalton, University of Colorado Boulder.
