The Car That Knew Too Much

The inside story of the groundbreaking experiment that captured what people think about the life-and-death dilemmas posed by driverless cars. Human drivers don't find themselves facing such moral dilemmas as "should I sacrifice myself by driving off a cliff if that could save the life of a little girl on the road?" Human brains aren't fast enough to make that kind of calculation; the car is over the cliff in a nanosecond. A self-driving car, on the other hand, can compute fast enough to make such a decision--to do whatever humans have programmed it to do. But what should that be? This book investigates how people want driverless cars to decide matters of life and death. In The Car That Knew Too Much, psychologist Jean-François Bonnefon reports on a groundbreaking experiment that captured what people think cars should do in situations where not everyone can be saved. Sacrifice the passengers for pedestrians? Save children rather than adults? Kill one person so many can live? Bonnefon and his collaborators Iyad Rahwan and Azim Shariff designed the largest experiment in moral psychology ever: the Moral Machine, an interactive website that has allowed people --eventually, millions of them, from 233 countries and territories--to make choices within detailed accident scenarios. Bonnefon discusses the responses (reporting, among other things, that babies, children, and pregnant women were most likely to be saved), the media frenzy over news of the experiment, and scholarly responses to it. Boosters for driverless cars argue that they will be in fewer accidents than human-driven cars. It's up to humans to decide how many fatal accidents we will allow these cars to have.

The inside story of the groundbreaking experiment that captured what people think about the life-and-death dilemmas posed by driverless cars. Human drivers don't find themselves facing such moral dilemmas as "should I sacrifice myself by driving off a cliff if that could save the life of a little girl on the road?" Human brains aren't fast enough to make that kind of calculation; the car is over the cliff in a nanosecond. A self-driving car, on the other hand, can compute fast enough to make such a decision--to do whatever humans have programmed it to do. But what should that be? This book investigates how people want driverless cars to decide matters of life and death. In The Car That Knew Too Much, psychologist Jean-François Bonnefon reports on a groundbreaking experiment that captured what people think cars should do in situations where not everyone can be saved. Sacrifice the passengers for pedestrians? Save children rather than adults? Kill one person so many can live? Bonnefon and his collaborators Iyad Rahwan and Azim Shariff designed the largest experiment in moral psychology ever: the Moral Machine, an interactive website that has allowed people --eventually, millions of them, from 233 countries and territories--to make choices within detailed accident scenarios. Bonnefon discusses the responses (reporting, among other things, that babies, children, and pregnant women were most likely to be saved), the media frenzy over news of the experiment, and scholarly responses to it. Boosters for driverless cars argue that they will be in fewer accidents than human-driven cars. It's up to humans to decide how many fatal accidents we will allow these cars to have.

A "skillful and literate" (New York Times Book Review) biography of the persecuted genius who helped create the modern computer. To solve one of the great mathematical problems of his day, Alan Turing proposed an imaginary computer. Then, attempting to break a Nazi code during World War II, he successfully designed and built one, thus ensuring the Allied victory. Turing became a champion of artificial intelligence, but his work was cut short. As an openly gay man at a time when homosexuality was illegal in England, he was convicted and forced to undergo a humiliating "treatment" that may have led to his suicide. With a novelist's sensitivity, David Leavitt portrays Turing in all his humanity—his eccentricities, his brilliance, his fatal candor—and elegantly explains his work and its implications.

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

“Mommy, I used to be a tall baseball player.” “Yes, you will be a tall baseball player someday.” With a look of exasperation, he stomped his foot and hollered. “No! I was a tall baseball player —tall like Daddy!” What was my son trying to say to me? Did he mean . . . he couldn’t mean . . . was he trying to tell me that he was a grown-up in a previous lifetime? At the tender age of two, baseball prodigy Christian Haupt began sharing vivid memories of being a baseball player in the 1920s and ’30s. From riding cross-country on trains, to his fierce rivalry with Babe Ruth, Christian described historical facts about the life of American hero and baseball legend Lou Gehrig that he could not have possibly known at the time. Distraught by her son’s uncanny revelations, Christian’s mother, Cathy, embarked on a sacred journey of discovery that would shake her beliefs to the core and forever change her views on life and death. In this compelling and heartwarming memoir, Cathy Byrd shares her remarkable experiences, the lessons she learned as she searched to find answers to this great mystery, and a story of healing in the lives of these intertwined souls. The Boy Who Knew Too Much will inspire even the greatest skeptics to consider the possibility that love never dies.

Food blogger Hope Early takes on a cold case that's heating up fast . . . Building on her recipe for success with her food blog, Hope at Home, Hope is teaching her first blogging class at the local library in Jefferson, Connecticut. She’s also learning about podcasts, including a true-crime one called Search for the Missing, hosted by Hope's childhood friend, Devon Markham. Twenty years ago on Valentine's Day, right here in Jefferson, Devon's mom disappeared and was never found. Finally Devon has returned to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother—and she asks Hope to help. The next day Hope discovers Devon's apartment has been ransacked. Her laptop with the research on her mother's cold case is missing, and Devon is nowhere to be found. When her friend's body is later discovered in a car wreck, Hope is convinced it's no accident. Clearly, Devon was too close to the truth, and the cold-blooded killer is still at large in Jefferson. Now it's up to Hope to find the guilty party—before the food blogger herself becomes the next subject of another true-crime podcast . . . Includes Recipes from Hope’s Kitchen!

In THE DOG WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, Chet and Bernie attend a P.I. convention to try and make some new (and hopefully lucrative) connections. It's the sort of thing Bernie hates, but he's got to do something to get his business back on track. The head of a big international security company seems impressed with The Little Detective Agency and hires them for what appears to be an easy and well-paid assignment. Things take an unexpected turn and all sorts of trouble ensues. Tensions are further strained when a stray puppy who looks an awful lot like Chet turns up. So does Dylan McKnight, Suzie Sanchez's former boyfriend. With Chet and Bernie both dealing with affairs of the heart at the same time they are facing an unexpectedly tricky case, it's a good thing that our two intrepid investigators are looking out for each other-as they always do.

"An engaging account of the moral decision making that will be required of driverless cars"--