Chapter 53

All eyes turned towards the MP. Jack’s face and demeanour remained unruffled by the accusation.

‘Jack,’ continued the hacker, ‘would you like to explain to the world how, in the event of an accident, a driverless car really makes a decision on who lives and who dies? Because everything you’ve told us has been a lie, hasn’t it?’

‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Fiona.

Screens containing the Passengers and news channels were replaced with just one image: Jack’s face, broadcast from the multiple hidden cameras scattered around the walls. He failed to react to them or the attention paid to him by the room’s occupants. Instead, he held firm, his face stoic, his back straight, hands clenched and legs spread shoulder-width apart.

‘Come on now, Jack,’ coaxed the Hacker. ‘Either I can tell them or you can. It makes no difference to me how this is exposed.’

Thirty seconds on the clock passed before Jack moved. Without acknowledging anyone, he straightened his tie and made his way towards the tall, wooden exit doors. He lingered where he was standing with his back to his colleagues.

‘I’m afraid it’s your turn to be a Passenger now,’ said the Hacker. ‘Is there something you would like to get off your chest? And remember, honesty is the best policy.’

Jack didn’t respond so the Hacker pressed on. ‘What have you been keeping from the public and your fellow jurors since your inquests began?

In a potentially fatal accident, how does a driverless car really make its decision?’

Matthew spoke. ‘I thought we’d adopted the German approach where software must be programmed to avoid injury or death at all cost? The car judges each individual scenario before taking the best course of action resulting in the fewest injuries or fatalities.’

‘And that was the intention when technology was in its infancy,’ the Hacker replied. ‘The public’s biggest concern then was how ethical and moral decisions could be made by robots. The powers-that-be assured us that driverless cars would try to save the most lives possible. And it was enough to appease most of us, even those who feared that car manufacturers would put their Passengers’ safety first. But it was all a lie, wasn’t it, Jack?

Because the cars you campaigned for are actually assessing us, and protecting the people that you have decided are the most valuable to society.’

‘What’s he talking about?’ whispered Cadman to one of his team. ‘Why haven’t I read about this online?’

‘What does he mean by “valuable to society”?’ Libby asked.

Jack was unwavering in his silence so the Hacker replied for him.

‘If an accident with a driverless car is unavoidable, the car isn’t only scanning its surroundings to make a decision, it’s scanning you. Everything on your National Identity Card and the information collected on your wearable technology decides, in less than a nanosecond, if you are worth saving or sacrificing.’

Libby shook her head. ‘But the ID cards only contain our basic details like National Insurance numbers, blood type, iris scans, et cetera. How can the value of my life depend on something like my eye colour?’

‘The cards actually collect and hold so much more than that – masses of data harvested from elsewhere you’ve given your information. It stores your medical records, internet search history, online purchases, level of education, average and projected earnings, relationship history, size of your mortgage, criminal record, who you associate with on social media – this list goes on.’

‘So it’s like a constantly evolving biography about our lives?’ asked Matthew.

‘Precisely. It’s a CV that can change daily, hourly even. Then add that to the data on the phones we carry and our wearable tech such as those tracking our activity and health, and, together, it provides a complete picture of who we are, where we belong in society and our role in shaping our country’s future. All that information helps a car rate us before it decides if we are to live or die.’

‘Who does it view are more important than others?’ Fiona asked.

‘Allow me to offer you a few examples. If it’s a choice between an unemployed teenager and a high-ranking council official, the teenager will not come out well. If it’s a pregnant woman and an elderly person living on a state pension, the latter will be sacrificed. An obese person will not fair well against an athlete; likewise a person with a criminal record will fall foul of one without. A police officer outranks a nurse but a doctor outweighs a police officer. A smoker comes before a drug user and a cancer patient takes precedent over someone with a family history of dementia. An MP triumphs over a civil servant but a cabinet minister tops an MP. And so it goes, on and on and on. The person most useful to our society always prevails. None of us are equals when it comes to driverless cars.’

Suddenly the screens became filled with images, data, names, inquest files stamped classified, blueprints and photographs and all with a link to download them. Amongst them, Libby recognised the three victims she had witnessed the death of in Monroe Street.

‘If this is true then I’m speechless,’ said Fiona, ‘I’m actually speechless.’

‘How was this ever sanctioned?’ asked Matthew. ‘Someone must have given it the go-ahead?’

‘It was a select few officials buried deep within Westminster’s walls who decided to use our own data against us and ensure any deaths on roads would not be people who “mattered”. Those offenders, including Jack, tasked with its development and implementation, saw an opportunity to socially cleanse certain members of society they believed didn’t offer enough. They wanted to use our own data against us.’

A hush filled the room as each person digested and processed the Hacker’s accusations. ‘Is this right, Jack?’ asked Muriel. ‘Are we nothing more than data to you?’

Jack shook his head and tugged at the cuffs of his shirt so they could be seen under the sleeves of his jacket. Finally, he turned to face the jurors.

‘The British people have been nothing but data since William I carried out the first census for the Domesday book in 1086,’ he began. ‘All we are, and all we have ever been, are statistics, so let’s not pretend this is a catastrophic crisis that risks tearing apart the very moral fibre of our society.

How do you think you are approved for credit cards and loans? How are decisions made on what you pay for insurance? How do we decide the number of immigrants allowed into our country? Acquired data. All that’s happened here is that we’ve reached a new level in our history where decisions have been made as to your importance to your country.’

‘And you believe this is justifiable?’ said Libby. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this but AI isn’t the enemy – you are.’

‘Tell me, Miss Dixon, what did you expect us to do?’ Jack responded.

‘Did you really think that we’d allow the cars to make all the decisions? We aren’t stupid; of course we were going to keep a tight rein over them. We have been afforded an unimaginable, once in a lifetime opportunity to protect the people who shape our society, who save lives, who contribute, who make it a better place for all of us. It is our duty to put them first. Do you think we should squander it in the name of an equality our country has never actually had? This is merely a modernisation of the class system. If you needed a life-saving operation, would you want a doctor or a supermarket shelf-stacker to hold the scalpel? Who would you prefer to rescue you from a burning building? A trained firefighter or someone with a learning disability?’

‘You judge lives based on disability too?’ asked Muriel.

Jack laughed. ‘Of course we do!’

‘But we are all God’s—’

‘Save it for Sunday’s sermon. Did you or your wife have a typical twenty-week screening test for your baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘To make sure everything was okay.’

‘And if it wasn’t?’

‘Well, er, we’d have to make a decision based—’

‘You’re a hypocrite. Because if we valued disabled people as much as we claim we do, we wouldn’t be testing for foetus abnormalities during pregnancy.’

‘This is no better than what the Nazis did,’ accused Libby. ‘You’re using accidents as an opportunity to erase anyone who doesn’t fit your profile of what society should resemble.’

‘We are hardly deploying soldiers to round people up and ship them off to camps, are we? All we are doing in the rare event of a fatal car accident is to put the country first. It’s natural selection for a modern age. Of course I wouldn’t expect someone like you to understand.’

‘This isn’t what the people wanted,’ Libby continued. ‘Do you remember the results of that survey by an American university? Millions of users from around the world answered ethical questions about who should be prioritised in a crash and their answers were supposed to be the building blocks for policymakers like you.’

‘It was called the Moral Machine and global surveys like that should be taken with a pinch of salt,’ Jack replied. ‘They’d only been completed by those who were tech-savvy so they didn’t represent the opinion of every demographic. And each scenario only had two outcomes – these people should die or those people should die. If we were to take the results on board, we’d be allowing our laws to be influenced by different cultures in different countries. Do you want the views of the Chinese or the Saudis to dictate who lives or who dies on British streets? That’s ridiculous.’

‘What has been the point of these inquests then?’ asked Fiona. ‘If a decision has already been made, then what we’ve been doing is inconsequential. Has anything we have ever said made the blindest bit of difference?’

‘When the deceased weren’t carrying identity cards or phones and we knew very little about them, then your judgement was useful.’

‘These inquests are nothing more than smokescreens, aren’t they? The Government is hiding what you do behind these inquests under the guise of a due process that doesn’t exist.’

Jack closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘This is becoming tiresome. Introducing driverless vehicles was the most seismic overhaul of the motor evolution since cars first joined our roads. Not a single person watching this farce play out has any idea of how much effort it took behind the scenes to make it work. And you criticise us because we’ve had some tough decisions to make? How dare you! Whether you like it or not, statistics speak for themselves and the bottom line is this – because of what I have helped to create, our roads have never been safer. The most

expert driver in the world cannot respond as consistently well as these cars do.’

Libby pointed to the screens. ‘Try telling that to the families of Victor, Bilquis, Shabana and the hundreds of people caught up in the explosions and who died this morning. And perhaps mention it to the Passengers still trapped in those cars waiting to die that what you’re doing is for the greater good.’

‘You are as ignorant as you are stupid, Miss Dixon.’

‘Right back at you, Jack, right back at you.’

‘The time,’ interrupted Matthew. ‘Look at the clock.’

Each juror turned to look at the countdown display. Just two minutes remained until the Passengers were scheduled to collide.