我們翻譯這篇文章的理由
??
駕駛的自由
作者：BRYAN APPLEYARD
譯者：郭嘉寧 & 張煜成
校對：李蕾
策劃：郭嘉寧
The freedom of driving
駕駛的自由
How driverless cars curtail our joy and autonomy to serve Silicon Valley’s voracious surveillance capitalism.
自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)剝奪了我們的快樂(lè )和自主權，以滿(mǎn)足硅谷野心勃勃的監控資本主義
Approaching the end of this strange and absorbing book Matthew Crawford considers the last scene of the movie Thelma and Louise. Cornered by police cars and a helicopter, the two heroines commit suicide by driving their turquoise Ford Thunderbird convertible into the Grand Canyon. They decide, writes Crawford, to “exit the whole shit-show by driving off a cliff”. Then he adds, “Try that in your Waymo.”
在這本奇異又吸引人的書(shū)末尾，馬修·克勞福德(Matthew Crawford)提到了電影《末路狂花》的最后一幕。在警車(chē)與直升飛機的包圍下，兩個(gè)女主角開(kāi)著(zhù)青綠色的福特雷鳥(niǎo)折篷轎車(chē)，從科羅拉多大峽谷一躍而下，結束了自己的生命?？藙诟５聦?xiě)道，她們決定要“開(kāi)下懸崖，離開(kāi)這個(gè)操蛋的世界?！比缓笏旨恿艘痪洌骸霸囋囉媚愕木S莫汽車(chē)(Waymo)能不能做到?！?/p>
A Waymo is – or, rather, will be – the opposite of that glorious T’Bird. It is a self- driving car powered by Google technology. The Waymo website boasts that its monstrous array of sensors and computers constitute “the world’s most experienced driver”. There is no way this thing would let you drive off a cliff. Your exit from the shit-show has been slammed shut, your freedom has been curtailed. And trivially curtailed in the name of advertising and consumer control, for Google is an advertising company, nothing more, nothing less. It cannot let its targets kill themselves either by accident or design. People must be saved from their free selves in the name of surveil-lance capitalism.
可以想見(jiàn)，維莫汽車(chē)將與優(yōu)秀的雷鳥(niǎo)轎車(chē)截然相反。這是一款由谷歌研發(fā)出的自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)，維莫汽車(chē)的網(wǎng)站宣稱(chēng)，其數量龐大的傳感器與電腦堪比“世界上經(jīng)驗最豐富的司機?！边@臺機器是絕對不會(huì )讓你開(kāi)下懸崖的。你離開(kāi)這個(gè)操蛋的世界的門(mén)已被砰地關(guān)上，你的自由已被剝奪。谷歌之所以要限制人們那部分微不足道的自由，是為了進(jìn)行廣告宣傳，進(jìn)一步控制用戶(hù)，畢竟谷歌就是一家廣告公司，僅此而已。谷歌不可以讓目標用戶(hù)的生命受到威脅，不論是意外身亡還是主動(dòng)自殺。為了監控資本主義，谷歌必須將人們從自由中解救出來(lái)。
Crawford is a Virginia-based physicist turned political philosopher. But, most of all, he is a petrolhead, a gearhead, who believes in working with his hands and driving – cars and motorbikes – to the limit. Speeding tickets rain down on him like confetti. This is risky in Virginia, where a few mph over the legal speed can land you in jail. In the prelude to this book he mentions four trips to the emergency room in 12 months. He feels, nevertheless, “existentially justified”. “Is risk,” he asks, “somehow bound up with humanising possibilities?” You know his answer is going to be yes indeed.
克勞福德居住在弗吉尼亞州，過(guò)去是一名物理學(xué)家，后來(lái)成為了政治哲學(xué)家。最重要的是，克勞福德是一名汽車(chē)發(fā)燒友，他所信奉的是用雙手掌控車(chē)輛，挑戰轎車(chē)與摩托車(chē)的速度極限，因而收到的限速罰單不計其數。在弗吉尼亞州，飆車(chē)的風(fēng)險頗高，時(shí)速略微高于法定限速就可能被送進(jìn)監獄。在這本書(shū)的前言中，克勞福德提到自己在1年中曾進(jìn)過(guò)4次急診室。然而，他認為“從人的存在本質(zhì)來(lái)看，這樣的受傷是合情合理的?！彼膯?wèn)題是：“是否出于某種原因，風(fēng)險與人生的可能性是緊密相連的？”你知道他的答案一定是肯定的。
He loves taking his machines to the edge – “There is a certain tonic in being scared shitless” – and he likes to challenge the law. “This is not mayhem, Officer,” he says to himself about a moment of perilous oversteer, “this is control.”
克勞福德喜歡極限駕駛，“在極度的恐懼中有一種令人興奮的東西”，他也喜歡挑戰法律。說(shuō)起一次十分危險的過(guò)度轉向，他自言自語(yǔ)道：“警官先生，這不是混亂，這是控制?！?/p>
On the other hand, you might reasonably say it is a good idea to stop Thelmas and Louises killing themselves and to make cars as safe as possible. The world, since 1965, has taken this view. That was the year Ralph Nader, an American attorney, published Unsafe at Any Speed. It’s a title Crawford adapts for his own purposes – “Unsafe at any speed” but also “fun at every speed”. Cars that are bad for your average driver are pure joy for the true petrolhead.
但是從另一個(gè)角度來(lái)看，你可能會(huì )說(shuō)，能夠阻止塞爾瑪與露易絲們自殺，盡可能提高車(chē)輛的安全性，這是一件好事。這種觀(guān)點(diǎn)合情合理。事實(shí)上，自1965年起，這種觀(guān)點(diǎn)便席卷全球。那一年，美國律師拉爾夫·納德出版了新書(shū)《任何速度都不安全》。就這一題目，克勞福德進(jìn)行了自己的改編——“任何速度都不安全”，但是同時(shí)，“任何速度都充滿(mǎn)樂(lè )趣?！庇行┢?chē)對于普通司機是危險的，但對于真正的汽車(chē)迷來(lái)說(shuō)卻完全是快樂(lè )源泉。
A car was the star of Nader’s book – the Chevrolet Corvair, first released in 1960. It was rear-engined and it had swing-axle rear suspension. It was, said Nader, lethal – as were many of the products of Detroit in the Sixties. The swing axle allowed the Corvair’s wheels to cope better with bumps and potholes, but there was a downside – it could cause the car to overturn. This became even more likely if the car happened to have a rear engine. In fact, later investigations showed the Corvair was not as bad as Nader claimed but, in general, he was right.
在書(shū)中，納德重要討論的一款車(chē)是雪弗萊的闊威爾牌轎車(chē)(Chevrolet Corvair)。這款車(chē)于1960年開(kāi)始生產(chǎn)，擁有后置發(fā)動(dòng)機與后方擺動(dòng)車(chē)軸式懸吊系統。納德聲稱(chēng)，闊威爾牌轎車(chē)是致命的——在六十年代，底特律生產(chǎn)的許多產(chǎn)品都是如此。有了擺動(dòng)車(chē)軸式懸吊系統，雪弗萊轎車(chē)的車(chē)輪可以在遇到路面隆起與凹坑時(shí)擁有更好的表現，但它也存在弊端——可能會(huì )導致轎車(chē)仰翻。而且，由于這款車(chē)的發(fā)動(dòng)機也是后置的，仰翻的風(fēng)險進(jìn)一步上升。事實(shí)上，后來(lái)的研究顯示，闊威爾牌并沒(méi)有納德宣稱(chēng)的那么糟糕，但總體而言，納德的擔憂(yōu)是正確的。
Detroit was humbled and cars had to be tamed. Compulsory seat belts, air bags, anti- lock brakes all followed and, for the most part, fatalities began to fall. But then something changed. New proactive safety devices – lane control, automatic braking systems, speed limiters – appeared. Drivers were being incrementally disempowered; we were on a one-way street to the driverless car.
底特律市意識到了事情的嚴重性，決定必須要對汽車(chē)的設計進(jìn)行管制。于是安全帶、安全氣囊與防抱死系統都成為了強制性要求，總體上來(lái)看，死亡人數確實(shí)開(kāi)始下降。但是之后，事情的走向變了。汽車(chē)中出現了新的預防性安全裝備——車(chē)道管制裝置，自動(dòng)剎車(chē)系統與車(chē)輛限速器。司機對汽車(chē)的掌控權被不斷削減，按照這個(gè)趨勢，自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)就是未來(lái)的發(fā)展方向，對此我們無(wú)計可施。
But autonomous cars, Crawford argues, are not primarily a caring, humane project to save lives, rather they are a scam designed to make our lives less interesting, less surprising and more profitable to the Silicon Valley monopolists.
然而，克勞福德表示，從根本上來(lái)說(shuō)，自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)并不是一個(gè)充滿(mǎn)關(guān)懷的人道主義項目，初衷也不是為了拯救生命。相反，這是一場(chǎng)騙局，削減了我們生活中的樂(lè )趣與刺激，而為壟斷市場(chǎng)的硅谷巨頭們帶來(lái)更多的利益。
“The most authoritative voices in commerce and technology,” he writes, “express a determination to eliminate contingency from life as much as possible, and replace it with machine-generated certainty.”
克勞福德寫(xiě)到，“商業(yè)與科技領(lǐng)域的壟斷者們態(tài)度強硬，要盡可能地消除生活中的不確定性，用機器產(chǎn)生的確定性取而代之?！?/p>
Driverless cars are catnip for the Silicon Valley monopolists. The average commute is dead space because their target is too busy driving to take in advertising or interact with any information-gathering devices. But what if the car becomes one of those devices? Crawford groans. “Do we want to make getting from point A to point B something you do, not in car, but in a device, that is, a portal to overlapping bureaucracies?” What do you do on your commute instead of driving? You stare at your laptop, tablet or phone. Safer possibly, but definitely less free.
對于這些硅谷的壟斷企業(yè)來(lái)說(shuō)，無(wú)人駕駛汽車(chē)具有特別的吸引力。普通的通勤路程是它們無(wú)法利用的死角，因為目標用戶(hù)正忙著(zhù)開(kāi)車(chē)，不可能留心廣告，或是使用任何收集信息的設備。但是假設，汽車(chē)本身變成了這類(lèi)設備的一員呢？克勞福德對此感到不滿(mǎn)?！按钶d我們從A地到B地的不再是車(chē)，而是一臺設備，一個(gè)通向工作的入口，讓人回到了層次重疊、流程繁瑣的辛苦工作中，這是我們想要的嗎？”在通勤的路上，不去駕駛，那么你做什么呢？盯著(zhù)電腦、平板或手機?？赡艽_實(shí)更加安全了，但是絕對不再那么自由了。
This book is a defence of felt life against the intrusions of the technocrats – a running theme in Crawford’s work, from The Case for Working with Your Hands (2010) to The World Beyond Your Head: How to Flourish in an Age of Distraction (2015).
這本書(shū)旨在捍衛充滿(mǎn)感知的生活，反對科技巨頭的侵入——這一主題始終貫穿于克勞福德的作品中，從2010年的《為什么體力勞動(dòng)是重要的》(The Case for Working with Your Hands)，到2015年的《外部的世界：如何在充滿(mǎn)干擾的時(shí)代下獲得幸?！?The World Beyond Your Head: How to Flourish in an Age of Distraction )。
His argument against the cult of safety is twofold. First, he thinks it imprisons us and compromises the human experience of free mobility. Second, he believes many safety measures are not what they seem.
克勞福德反對目前關(guān)于安全的狂熱推崇，原因有兩點(diǎn)。第一，這種過(guò)度謹慎是一種束縛，對于人類(lèi)自由出行的體驗造成了威脅。第二，克勞福德認為，許多的安全措施并不像表面上看起來(lái)那么簡(jiǎn)單。
The theft of human experience is a “moral reduction”. It deploys a form of automated utilitarianism, a superhuman calculus that delivers machine-readable moral demands, the sort of things that are now being fed into the development of driverless cars – do you avoid hitting the baby and knock over a few old people instead? Like all forms of utilitarianism this involves a removal of human agency since all judgements are mathematised, leaving nothing for the would-be moral individual to do except obey.
人類(lèi)駕駛體驗的流失代表著(zhù)其道德地位的降級。它內嵌了一套自動(dòng)化的功利主義，用迥異于人類(lèi)情感的算式產(chǎn)出具有機器可讀性的“道德”指令——一個(gè)初生嬰兒的生命價(jià)值大于若干位遲暮老人？這就是無(wú)人駕駛汽車(chē)的發(fā)展趨勢。像其他功利主義理論一樣，當所有選項都被量化，準道德個(gè)體的意義不復存在，留給我們的只剩服從。
We are denied “our original, animal genius for learning about the world by acting directly on it” and “at the end of this trajectory… the world becomes a techno-zoo for defeated people”. Crawford sees resistance movements like the gilet jaunes, who destroyed 60 per cent of the radar speed traps in France, as first responders to this crude machine-made moralism.
我們“與生俱來(lái)的，從實(shí)踐中認知世界的天賦”被駁回，“而最終，失敗者生活在這賽博朋克般的世界里”?？藙诟５聦ⅫS馬甲們，那些破壞了法國60%雷達限速裝置的抗議者，視為率先反抗殘酷機器道德的先驅。
But his real heroes seem to be London’s black cabbies who, he notes with awe, pursue with monk-like devotion the “Knowledge” of the 25,000 streets within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross. The Knowledge is embodied within the drivers, it is not served up by the US military satellite system we know as GPS. That is, of course, what is used by one of Crawford’s – and the cabbies’ – prime villains, Uber.
但他心中真正的英雄似乎是倫敦的黑車(chē)司機，在他充滿(mǎn)贊嘆的注解中，這些司機像僧人一樣追求著(zhù)“真知”，也就是查林十字方圓六英里以?xún)?5000條街道的分布。這些信息被刻在的哥腦中，而不是由美國軍方衛星系統—GPS提供?？藙诟５卵壑械膼汗鳌猆ber，使用的就是后者。
Uber loses billions by subsidising its fares and flooding the streets with empty cars, a business model “made possible by diverting attention from the massive fare subsidies (supplied by investors) responsible for its growth”. The long-term goal, he thinks, is to attain market dominance, then ditch the drivers and replace all those Priuses with driverless cars.
對乘客的補貼和其充滿(mǎn)街道的空車(chē)使Uber損失了數十億，這種經(jīng)營(yíng)模式“只能通過(guò)將注意力從那些本該帶來(lái)營(yíng)收的巨額乘客補貼上轉移”才得以延續。他認為Uber的長(cháng)期目標是取得市場(chǎng)壟斷地位，然后拋棄司機，用無(wú)人駕駛汽車(chē)取代那些豐田普銳斯。
But there is hope for the humans and the gearheads. It lies in the misalignment between the technocratic imagination and lived experience. Technocrats are “easily tempted into a moral-intellectual space that floats free of the empirical, and has more in common with the non-falsifiable commitments of religious faith”, he says. They dream of “smart cities” which, they say, are “the next trillion-dollar frontier for Big Tech” but which would, in fact, be modern panopticons, dystopias of surveillance and consumption. This, we are told, is the future, but nobody with a soul can possibly want it.
而人類(lèi)和計算機迷們的希望在于技術(shù)統治論的幻想和現實(shí)的失準。他認為，技術(shù)統治論者會(huì )“輕易得陷入缺乏實(shí)證經(jīng)驗的智能道德空間，類(lèi)似于皈依無(wú)法證偽的宗教信仰?！彼麄冦裤健爸悄艹鞘小薄按笮涂萍脊鞠乱粋€(gè)價(jià)值連城的技術(shù)前沿”，可這個(gè)概念實(shí)際上，卻是現代監獄，充斥著(zhù)監視和消費的反烏托邦世界。這被稱(chēng)作未來(lái)，可每個(gè)有靈魂的人都不會(huì )愿意置身其中。
Crawford has even more fun in his catalogue of ways in which safety measures don’t work. This seems to be especially true of the various add-ons to cars on the way to driverlessness. One effect of these is to lull drivers into a false sense of security while stripping them of the driving skills they would need when the gizmos go wrong – which, as any Boeing 737 Max pilot will tell you, they often do.
克勞福德更加樂(lè )意闡述安全裝置無(wú)效的原因。這對于汽車(chē)自動(dòng)化過(guò)程中帶來(lái)的種種附加條件來(lái)說(shuō)尤其準確。其中之一就是給司機帶來(lái)了虛假的安全感，因為當裝置失效時(shí)，司機已經(jīng)喪失了處理緊急情況的能力，而波音737Max駕駛員則經(jīng)常需要應對這種情況。
On the way to driverlessness we find ourselves with “a dysfunctional hybrid of human control that makes little use of the exquisite connections between mind and body, plus a crude interface of symbols”. On top of that, touch screen “infotainment” controls are actually very dangerous – they take your eyes off the road for a surprisingly long time. And I shudder to think how many have died or been maimed by people operating mobile phones while driving.
在駕駛無(wú)人化的過(guò)程中，“我們對于自身手腦結合能力的精細運用在控制汽車(chē)方面無(wú)所作為，并需要和一個(gè)原始的人機交互界面為伍?！背艘酝?，觸摸屏的娛樂(lè )信息控制通常十分危險，使你的注意力長(cháng)時(shí)間游離于路況以外。想起由于駕駛中使用手機導致的事故死傷人數，我不寒而栗。
At this point you may be growing a little wary of this book. Where is this guy coming from? Is he a redneck-loving Republican with his insistence on the centrality of the individual when set against the state? Or is he a leftish monopoly-buster waging war on the tyrannies of Silicon Valley?
看到這里，你可能對這本書(shū)有所顧忌。這家伙是誰(shuí)？是個(gè)偏愛(ài)紅脖子的共和黨，帶著(zhù)他對個(gè)體自主權利的執拗反對政府干預？還是個(gè)左派的反壟斷者，想對硅谷的科技巨頭們宣戰？
Crawford is neither of those. He simply loves real cars. Indeed, he loves them so much that he even loves traffic. His passage on road rage is plain funny. He quotes one study of drivers in Los Angeles that found that being pissed off is “an infinitely recurring experience”. Road rage is “analytical work” involving anger at “Prius drivers who want you to know they ‘buy local’. Meth-head rednecks in jacked-up pickups. Blow-dried douchebags in BMWs. Vindictive fat people in Pontiac Aztecs…” and so on.
克勞福德兩者都不是。他只是簡(jiǎn)單地熱愛(ài)汽車(chē)，喜歡到連熙來(lái)攘往的通勤車(chē)流都覺(jué)得可愛(ài)的程度。他有關(guān)“路怒癥”的文章很有意思，文章引用了有關(guān)洛杉磯司機的憤怒的一篇研究。研究提出，憤怒是“循環(huán)往復、永不停歇的情緒”，路怒癥源于“對他人的認知：開(kāi)豐田普銳斯的想讓你知道他們支持本地貨，沉迷毒品的紅脖子們開(kāi)高高的皮卡，表面光鮮的人都買(mǎi)寶馬，彭迪亞克里坐得都是小肚雞腸的胖子…”，類(lèi)似的偏見(jiàn)還有很多。
This love of cars spills over into his philosophy and his politics, which are neither of the right nor the left and certainly not of the centre. But he is a conservative in the mould of his hero, the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, “One of the most beautifully austere thinkers of the 20th century.” From him he derives an “affection for the present”, cherishing what actually exists rather than mourning the past or aspiring to the future. And nothing has more actually existed for the past 130 years than the car.
克勞福德對汽車(chē)的喜愛(ài)之情也洋溢在他的哲學(xué)與政治見(jiàn)解里，這些觀(guān)點(diǎn)既非左也非右，更不中立。但他對自己的偶像，邁克爾·歐克肖特（Michael Oakeshott）的觀(guān)點(diǎn)十分保守，后者在他眼中是“20世紀最優(yōu)美且簡(jiǎn)樸的思想家之一”。從其身上克勞福德推演出“珍重當下”的思想：與其沉湎過(guò)去，奢望將來(lái)，不如把握真正擁有的東西。而在過(guò)去的130年中，沒(méi)有什么比汽車(chē)更加真實(shí)。
The internal combustion-powered car is, for the moment, the loveable present. The car-killers are gathering; they now even claim that the pandemic will be another nail in the coffin of automobilism. Crawford also senses it has not long to go and fears that, in the end, the technocrats will have their way. He imagines a driverless future in which the great old “dumb” cars – “vintage Ferraris with six smelly Italian carburettors and a set of ignition points living inside a grimy centrifugal-advance distributor” – have been bought up by the bosses of Google to provide themselves with “the undisturbed head space they need to do their deep thinking while commuting”. No Waymos for them – they’re for losers, the safe but enslaved underclass of surveillance capitalism, the shit-show from which there is no exit.
當下，內燃機汽車(chē)就是美好的現實(shí)。而那些反汽車(chē)者正在宣揚，這次的疫情將會(huì )是壓死人工駕駛的最后一根稻草?？藙诟５赂杏X(jué)到，在不久的將來(lái)，科技統治論者將如愿以?xún)?。在無(wú)人駕駛的未來(lái)里，那些偉大、古老又“蠢笨”的汽車(chē)，那些“擁有六套難聞的意大利制造化油器和放置在一件污穢不堪的離心式提前分配器中的點(diǎn)火器的古典法拉利們”，將負責為谷歌的老板們提供“通勤時(shí)不受打擾的思考空間”。而自動(dòng)駕駛汽車(chē)，將成為失敗者們的選擇，奴役著(zhù)看似安全的底層民眾，在監視性資本主義社會(huì )里，無(wú)處可逃。
本文原載于 NewStatesman
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