捷豹路虎：我们永远不会做自动驾驶汽车

Wolfgang Epple——捷豹路虎的研发负责人，他最近在媒体发布会中接受采访并表示，捷豹路虎绝不可能将用户当作“百无一用”的货物。我们不想要生产一台将人类从A处运送到B处的机器。

于此同时，你有可能为特斯拉CEO马斯克最近说的一句话而气哭。他表示，人类驾驶将在最短20年内被禁止。

激烈的辩论就这样开始了，Wolfgang Epple反驳道：“规矩都是人定的，你说了可不算！”

英文原文：

When we hunker in our bunkers as our robot overlords dictate our thoughts and ferry us to where they want us to go, we'll have a secret vehicle stashed away.

It'll be an old Jaguar, buried underground and waiting to be driven. By you, that is.

I feel sure of this scenario, as I've just heard word that Jaguar Land Rover will never, ever make self-driving cars.

Automotive News reports that the company's head of R&D, Wolfgang Epple, uttered these words at a press event: "We don't consider customers cargo. We don't want to build a robot that delivers the cargo from A to B."

You might muse, amid your emotive human sniffling, that Elon Musk has already declared that human driving will be banned in as little as 20 years' time.

Epple, however, said: "I don't believe it will be forbidden. The reason is that lawmakers are human beings."

He's clearly never met any Google employees, some of whom, one fancies, might like to become very unconventional lawmakers.

The algorithm says: Vote People's Robot Party.

Still, the Jag meister insisted: "People want to use the emotional side of the brain, and autonomous driving does not generate that experience." Indeed, not. It generates the experience of the 2:45 p.m. slow train from Washington, D.C. to Richmond, Va.

But, hey, at least you'll be able to text safely.

It's not that Epple wouldn't like to have some autonomous features on Jags and Land Rovers. But in the end, he wants the human in control. I have contacted Jaguar Land Rover for further comment and will update, should I hear from a human.

Grumblers would suggest that Jaguar Land Rover hasn't been too efficient in producing cars that are enormously successful of late.

I wonder, though, whether Epple's stance might be the beginning of an interesting form of marketing.

Where once car manufacturers told people that theirs was the "driver's car," or even "The Ultimate Driving Machine," now Jaguar could present its wares as being designed for humans to still enjoy, as opposed to merely being chauffeured (slowly) in.

For a time, at least, operating machinery can remain a virtue, until the machines operate us.

与非网编译，严禁转载！

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