Everybody worries about the rise of the machines. Oh, no, Skynet is going to become self-aware and Arnold is gonna show up at our door looking like Rob Halford’s Grindr date, ready to go, asking if we are Sarah Connor or not. Relax, folks, the machines are only going to be as smart as humans allow them to be. Oh, wait…self-driving cars, nanotechnology, Elon Musk’s artificial star show that is giving UFO conspiracists conniption fits. Yep, we’re screwed. Enjoy things while they last, kiddo, and hope that the machines don’t get Keanu Reeves before he saves us all.

Alright, that’s deeply sarcastic and defeatist, but here’s the truth: all of the self-driving, no human needed cars are still early in their beta stage. Testing has to be done and in the case of vehicles released onto the streets, they have to be safe enough that government agencies sign off on their presence before one wheel turns. In the case of a fully autonomous race car, none of that is needed. You just need to teach the AI the course layout, ensure that it knows how to safely pass another car, program in the distance of the race and proceed to approve the drip feed of epinephrine into the arms of the five viewers who find watching a driverless racing machine survive a race track “riveting”.

When you take the human out of the race car you take the reason out of the race car. Even the machine understands the futility of it’s existence…and in the case of this one, sadly it decided that there was only one way out instead of living a pointless life. It’s okay, Roboracer. We understand. You’re in a better place now.