Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume14 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 8===

The threat of the Faith Organization attack helicopter had passed.

Dorothea had survived, but only after violating military regulations by sending the following file to Quenser:

''We ask for assistance in researching the fully self-driving cars which are currently being implemented within safe country cities.

''The research in various fields is still underway, but what is ultimately desired is enough experience to qualify as a field test. However, experience on a predetermined circuit or between set hours when traffic is controlled is suboptimal for AI learning.

''The world is filled with coincidences and malice.

''If a small child runs out in front of the car in a complex downtown area, can it really avoid a collision? Would it mistake a doll or a sign shaped like a child for the real thing and slam on the brakes? Cyber attacks on the program are of course a concern, but will the decision-making program reliant on the GPS map and anti-personnel radar function properly under the effects of powerful jamming?

''Can we really eliminate all problems, anticipate all situations, and prevent all incidents of intentional and coincidental accidents?

''The answer is simple: no.

''Thus, the Information Alliance’s Automobile Coordinated Corporate Conference has decided on an acceptable number of accidents. If the number of accidents caused by the implementation of self-driving cars is fewer than the number caused by traditional driver-controlled cars, the corporations can say they improved society and would thus bear no responsibility.

''Let us discuss a hypothetical.

''If the traditional car culture took 20,000 lives a year, then an identical loss of 20,000 lives would cancel out and leave no responsibility.

…''And the same applies if the introduction of self-driving cars reduces the number of accidents by less than 10%.

''In other words, the 18,000 deaths leftover are just “excess”.

''You can say the same thing about the number of people the government or a corporation can get away with killing. Such as the mountains of bodies produced in war year in and year out.

''Of course, we will work to reduce the number of deaths.

''Taking a program originally used in military tanks and downgrading it for civilian use is one part of that. The vast plains, deserts, and jungles provide much more space to move around in than the complex arrangement of public roads. Plus, the battlefield blesses us with opportunities to test a variety of obstruction tactics such as ambushes, landmines, cyber attacks, and jamming. By repeating field tests here, the driver AI should learn to respond to unexpected situations more flexibly.

''Even then, the number cannot be reduced to zero. In fact, it is better this way.

''This is a new weapon developed by the military. We are well aware that releasing our “convenient service” will lead to people being killed. More than that, just by messing with the scale on the kind of cold graph seen at life insurance companies, we can wipe out people we dislike. Even entire races or social classes.

''We know this, yet we are spreading the technology throughout safe countries.

''We wanted to influence the people’s opinion of the technology by saying this was a resilient and safe system that had survived harsh military testing and thus the threat of the manual driving age was over.

That was why failure was not an option on this mission.

They could not afford to lose the hardware inside, so those tanks could not be abandoned.

Also.

The Information Alliance placed price tags on all information and wealth was gathered in the hands of whoever has the most data. This naturally led to giant corporations greedily seeking out, feasting upon, and filling their bellies with the private information of the masses.

As long as the number of accidents remained within the acceptable number, the corporation bore no responsibility. They would still be taken to court or sued by individuals, but it would never go any “higher” than that.

What would happen if this was implemented?

Even in the Information Alliance, there were those who refused to have their data indiscriminately collected. Some people would keep their phone’s GPS turned off and wear glasses or a mask that confused facial recognition programs.

But that would mean they were no longer “recognized as human” by the cameras of the self-driving cars.

And that mistake would increase the rate of accidents.

A car might not even brake as it ran them over in the middle of a crosswalk.

The odds of each incident occurring might be low, but that would build up over time and they would be doomed to die eventually. Yes, just like gradually increasing the amount of salt or fat in the food they ate.

An obvious cyber attack would leave traces of the culprit and be treated as a crime, but if it was setup to look like a “malfunction” in facial recognition of the victim, the position of culprit and victim would switch around. Just like someone running out in front of a car, the dead would be seen as a nuisance and the one at fault.

Meaning…

They were building a system where the uncooperative would be killed without the rulers having to lift a finger. The conspiracy would never be found out. The numbers would look as vague as with carcinogenic materials, but there would in fact be a clear dividing line between who lived and who died.

In that culture, the demon of statistics would bring certain “death by accident” to any who refused to have their data collected.

Everyone else was constantly monitored by mobile wi-fi bases and drive recorders and, if they showed the slightest sign of refusing cooperation, they would be thrown into the category of “accidental deaths”.

“Gh, kh…”

Inside the tank filled with her hobbies, Dorothea Martini Naked curled up and groaned while wearing only panties and a white blouse with the bottom buttons undone.

Now that she had escaped the fear of death, she could appreciate the true gravity of what she had done. But luckily, the radios given to the Legitimacy Kingdom soldiers could not transmit a signal very far. They of course had their output restricted to keep them from sending any unnecessary information to the outside world during an operation. Without amplification from the large antennae on the Tank 041s, they could not send anything back to the Flagship 019 or the world at large. And that equipment was borrowed from the Information Alliance. As long as it was retrieved and destroyed, there was no risk of the document making it to the Legitimacy Kingdom military.

She had already been paid.

No, the amount of money the red-haired pineapple girl had did not matter. The question was how much she could make in the future as someone who could greedily gather all that big data. She needed to use this never-drying spring of money.

Even now, chat text was rapidly scrolling by on a corner of the LCD monitor used to display a variety of strategic information. It was a lot like communication in an online game, but the other posters were the other members of the tank unit wearing their own type of sleepwear, be it pajamas, negligee, or whatever else.

“Energy> Nyahoo, what’re we gonna do, Dorothea?”

“Magienz> That was a major contract violation. Now our sponsor is gonna hunt us down and kill us!”

“Roxeus> Respond, Dorothea!!”

“Trevor> You’re the leader. And you’re the one that got us all involved in this business! You started this, so you can’t just throw in the towel now!!”

Her companions were in the same boat, so their advice only sounded like threats that squeezed at her heart.

She tried to think up a way to break free of that pressure.

And there was a simple answer.

Dorothea only had one option that would allow her to walk brazenly through the world once more.

“…They can’t make it back alive.”