The advance of the self-driving car may be the most important technological¹ breakthrough of the coming decades.

自动驾驶汽车领域的进展可能是未来几十年最重要的科技突破。

Even generally well-informed people I meet regard driverless vehicles as being still pretty “out there”. And I doubt that the hundreds of millions of people who steer³ vehicles for a living will start giving it much thought until too late.

即使我遇到的一些消息灵通人士也认为，无人驾驶汽车仍然是“很遥远的事情”。我也怀疑，为了谋生而开车的亿万人会及时开始深入考虑这一问题。

But major car companies are vying⁴ to get consumer-ready autonomous⁵ cars on the market by around 2020. Professionals, from economists⁶ to town planners to traffic engineers to legislators to insurers, are starting to grapple with the massive changes this will bring.

但各大车企正致力于在2020年左右把面向消费者的自动驾驶汽车推向市场。从经济学家到城市规划者，从交通工程师到立法者和保险业者，专业人士正着手应对它将带来的巨大变化。

What, then, might a smart lawyer make of the legal implications of the coming transport revolution?

那么，对于这场即将到来的运输革命，一位聪明的律师会怎样看待其潜在法律影响呢？

I have been to Cambridge to meet Stephen Hamilton, a partner in the UK law firm, Mills & Reeve, which is positioning itself as an authority on driverless vehicle law.

我到剑桥(Cambridge)拜访了英国律所Mills & Reeve合伙人史蒂芬?汉密尔顿(Stephen Hamilton)；该律所正定位于无人驾驶车辆法律的权威。

Mr Hamilton specialises in helping⁷ companies raise funds from the capital markets, but he has spent three years researching and building expertise⁸ on autonomous vehicles.

汉密尔顿专长于帮助企业从资本市场筹集资金，但他花了三年时间研究自动驾驶汽车，积累起相关专业知识。

“The internet is all about moving text, voice and pictures around digitally,” he says, as we look out over university buildings where scientists from Isaac Newton to Charles Darwin to Stephen Hawking⁹ have worked.

他说：“互联网的本质就是以数字方式来传送文字、语音和图片。”我们望着校内一栋栋建筑，这里是艾萨克?牛顿(Isaac Newton)、查尔斯?达尔文(Charles Darwin)和斯蒂芬?霍金(Stephen Hawking)曾工作过的地方。

“The disruption the internet caused was massive. But if we get there on self-driving mobility¹⁰, and we’re moving people and things around a network digitally, we ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of disruption.”

“互联网造成的颠覆是巨大的。但如果我们实现无人驾驶，利用数字手段在一个网络内运输人和物件，就颠覆而言，大幕才刚拉开。”

The legal question around self-driving cars that has attracted most attention, however, is not about the great shifts in the way we might live, but the “who to kill” dilemma¹¹: a child runs out in front of an autonomous car, should it be programmed to swerve¹² to avoid the child, even if that means hitting an oncoming car or people at a bus stop?

围绕自动驾驶汽车的法律问题引起了极大关注，但人们关注的并不是我们的生活方式可能发生的巨大转变，而是“该杀谁”的两难困境：一个孩子突然出现在一辆自动驾驶汽车前方，汽车应不应该从编程上急转弯以避开孩子，哪怕这意味着与迎面而来的汽车相撞，或撞到在公交车站等车的人？

In Mr Hamilton’s view, this ethical¹³ question has been overplayed.

在汉密尔顿看来，这个伦理问题被过度夸大了。

“The solution is that when a vehicle meets an obstruction¹⁴, it can do only a limited number of things — steer left or right to overtake or get round it, or brake, or accelerate. The last is unlikely to be applicable, so it’s really a three-way choice.

“解决办法是，当车辆遇到障碍物时，它能采取的行动是有限的：从左方或右方超车或绕过去，或者刹车，或者加速。最后一个不太可能适用，所以这实际上就是一个三项选择题。”

“What we would suggest is that if you can’t get round it, the only choice is to brake and avoid or mitigate¹⁵ the damage. There’s no ethical choice in that for an algorithm or decision tree to act on. It’s an obstruction that’s moved into your path that shouldn’t have been there, just like somebody falling or jumping in front of a train.”

“我们的建议是，如果你不能绕过去，唯一的选择就是刹车，避免或减轻伤害。这里不存在需要算法或决策树伤脑筋的道德选择。你前方的路上出现了一个不该在那里的障碍，就像有人摔倒或者跳到火车前方。”

You can “war game” anomalies, he explains, but each time, the only answer is to brake and hope for the least damage to the child. Anyway, autonomous cars will always be driving more safely than humans do, and will always react faster than even a rational, alert and sober human.

他解释说，你可以把异常状况搞得像“战争游戏”，但每一次的答案只有一个：刹车，并希望对孩子的伤害降到最小。无论如何，自动驾驶汽车总会比人类驾驶员更安全，总会比哪怕是理性、警觉、清醒的人类驾驶员反应更快。

Another ethical issue Mr Hamilton flagged up is the potential mighty¹⁶ fuss over unfit drivers taking to the road again in a self-driving car. Could or should society stop a banned driver from buying a self-driving car and regaining¹⁷ full mobility?

汉密尔顿提出的另一个伦理问题是，已被吊销驾照的驾驶者开着自动驾驶汽车再次驶上道路，潜在可能引起极大的争议。社会可以（或者应该）阻止被吊销驾照的司机购买自动驾驶汽车和重获完全机动能力吗？

Then there is a boring-but-important legislative¹⁸ issue. Road traffic law throughout the developed world is based on two international treaties, the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Vienna Convention.

还有一个枯燥但重要的立法问题。发达国家的公路交通法律基于两项国际公约：1949年《日内瓦道路交通公约》(Geneva Convention on Road Traffic)，以及1968年《维也纳道路交通公约》(Vienna Convention on Road Traffic)。

Both specify¹⁹ that control of a vehicle must at all times be with the driver, so they will need to be adapted before fully self-driving cars are legal. Far from a small matter.

二者都规定任何时候车辆都必须由驾驶员控制，因此在全自动驾驶汽车合法之前，先得修改这条规定。这绝不是件小事。

China, which has signed neither convention, is in a position to put autonomous cars on its roads. Chinese manufacturers are still grappling with the technology, but rest of the world, you have been warned.

并未签署这两项公约的中国，可以让自动驾驶汽车上路。中国的制造商仍在攻克无人驾驶技术，但全球其他地方应该关注这个法律问题。

Another thing. What about free will? If my car is behind an older gentleman’s ancient vehicle doing a steady 20mph, can I programme mine to overtake, possibly breaking the speed limit as it does so?

此外就是自由意志的问题。如果我的车跟在一位年长绅士的老爷车后面，该车以20英里的时速慢吞吞地行驶，我可以给自己的车编程超车吗？哪怕它可能在超车时违反限速规定？

The answer, Mr Hamilton believes, is that there is unlikely to be an “accept moderately risky²⁰ driving” option in your autonomous car’s presets.

哈密尔顿认为，答案是，自动驾驶汽车的预设选项中不太可能出现“接受适度风险驾驶”这一选项。

“But anyway,” he adds a little drily, “I suspect that the car won’t get bored or fed up”, like human drivers do. Instead, it “will know that at the end of the journey, the overtake will have saved about seven seconds [so it] will apply ruthless logic² and not do it”.

“但无论如何，”他带着一丝冷幽默说，“我估计汽车不会（像人类驾驶员那样）感到无聊或厌烦”。相反，它“会知道最终而言，这次超车可以节省大约7秒钟，因此它会运用不带感情的逻辑分析，决定不超车。”

Hacking²¹ your car’s software to do so, he added, will be illegal. The same software will also refuse to drive you anywhere but the garage if the car needs a service or a system update.

他补充说，黑进汽车软件这么干是非法的。软件将拒绝把你载到任何地方，唯独汽车修理厂除外——如果汽车需要保养，或者进行系统更新。

It is not insignificant²² that last year’s registrations²³ of new (human driven) cars in the UK hit a high of 2.69m. Neither is it to be overlooked that the CEO of the Toyota Research Institute said at the Consumer Electronics Show just last week that the car industry is “not even close” to fully autonomous cars.

值得一提的是，去年英国（人类驾驶的）新车注册量高达269万辆。还有一件事也不可忽视，丰田研究院(Toyota Research Institute)首席执行官近日在消费电子展(CES)上表示，汽车行业离全自动驾驶汽车的“边儿都不挨着”。

Yet I came away from my meeting with Mr Hamilton pretty sure that not long from now, the notion of humans steering²⁴ vehicles will, as he believes, seem as anachronistic²⁵ and undesirable²⁶ as jousting²⁷ or duelling.

不过当我与汉密尔顿告别时，我十分确信一点：不久以后，就像汉密尔顿所认为的那样，人类驾驶汽车将像骑马比武或决斗一样，成为一个过时的、不可取的概念。