Should self driving cars make moral choices?

[vrsick]

I don't think the current cars make a distinction between the object being human or being another car.

Which is why I think self driving cars are stupid until technology exists.

[lonely zergling]

Always save the lifes of people inside the car.

[Deleted]

Actually a self driving car should be able to not be speeding, meaning only drive so fast that you can still come to a halt within the free road you can see.

If the car still hits people in the road it's their fault since they must have jumped in front of the car.

[Bigbazz]

How fast and unsafe are these cars to be killing people? A modern car with good safety is not going to kill anyone if it crashes into a wall swerving from a group of people, mostly because the car is going to be doing like 20-30mph tops. I think the problem with this whole comparison is that you're not thinking of realistic scenarios.

No self driving car is going to be doing 80mph in built up areas, car accidents rarely result in death.

If you swerve, or run off the road to avoid something, without ascertaining a safer route. You are not making a moral choice.

Period. You are being stupid.

The only thing stupid here is how fast your automated car is driving to be causing a risk in such a built up/busy area, applying the brakes to stop should be the right course, these are all crazy scenarios.

[Raptor With a Saber]

Well in all 3 of those pictures it will flip and crush way more people but w/e. The point is yes Kill less to save more that has always been the moto for everything that has ever been done. Kill a thousand to save a million

[Deleted]

The society do not want sombady to die in a traffic accident, but if sombady shall be sacrificed, it is the guilty pedestrian(s) who trigger the accident, not the innocent driver, not the innocent pedestrian who stand beside of the road.

Of course the car will do what it can do minimize the damage, like apply maximum braking, alert the hospital, if space allow it maneuver away.

[Wildtree]

hypothetical questions?
aait..


Who is that single person?

Say,
Me? A relative? A friend? Fuck no..
Trump? Speed up before the impact.

[Fencers]

I think driving your own vehicle should be outlawed in cities. All cars should be self driving or you take public transport.

So called smart cars should prioritize the least impactful course to the vehicle.

[GennGreymane]

technically they have to. As someones really funny image implies above this post.

[Wildtree]

I think driving your own vehicle should be outlawed in cities. All cars should be self driving or you take public transport.

So called smart cars should prioritize the least impactful course to the vehicle.

Cool.
You just eliminated tens of thousands of jobs.
Nah, how about the average private citizen pleb cannot drive at all, and we leave the roads to professionals who actually know what they're doing?
And as indicated, we don't limit that to city limits, since the worst fatal accidents actually happen outside the cities.

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Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

There is a clear connection to be seen between fatalities and traffic laws combined with mandatory driving education.
On top, we've to consider the infrastructure. as in road qualities.

[Ayla]

isn't the "sticky hood" that Google patented supposed to solve this issue?

http://gizmodo.com/google-patented-a...ian-1777376162

Stickyhood will never make it to market. For the simple fact, people are assholes. I'm not even as asshole (ok, maybe I am) and I can see people I know picking up our friend and throwing him on the hood, just so he could be stuck.

200lb 6 foot man, vs 5'0 100lb guy. Trolling ensues.

[Notshauna]

Such a car would never get into that situation, that's the thing about machines they don't make mistakes if you properly account for them in such a situation, and self driving cars undoubtedly would account for sudden pedestrians.

[Zoranon]

Such a car would never get into that situation, that's the thing about machines they don't make mistakes if you properly account for them in such a situation, and self driving cars undoubtedly would account for sudden pedestrians.

The only way to account for something like this would be to drive at about 1 kph...

[Fencers]

Cool.
You just eliminated tens of thousands of jobs.

I am okay with this actually. I really don't think the average person should be allowed to use a vehicle.

[Hana Song]

I would never buy a car that would willingly kill me

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Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

That list is annoying buy not having everything in alphabet order

[rayden54]

I think it should function as a normal car would in those situations, rather than deliberately sacrificing anyone.

By "a normal car" you can only mean "a normal driver."

Leaving aside the ethical question, there is a legal answer to the question: who's at fault? Given that we're talking about self-driving cars, probably the pedestrian.

The other major consideration is whether it's a good idea to try to swerve out of the way regardless of what's in the way. They usually tell you it's not. Trying to do so could actually end up making things worse. To use the examples in the pictures, what happens after the car hits the wall? Does it end up rolling into the pedestrian(s) anyway?

Moral choices like this are actually why I don't think we're ready for self-driving cars. I think the first time a self-driving car hits a small child (which if the AI ends up favoring the driver is going to happen), the outrage'll probably kill them.

Or self driving should be grandfathered in to every car and we should aim to have automated highways, wherein every car connects to a "hive mind" which controls every single car in a fail-safe manner.

Doesn't help with pedestrians.

[tj119]

I would never buy one for reasons like this.

[Auxora]

It's never really the car making the decision, it's the programmer that decides to tell it how to handle each situation. But I've been following it pretty closely and at least the ones out so far are all fairly hard limited to not go outside the yellow sidemarker lines at the side of the road. So it's far more likely they'd be programmed to brake asap rather than swerve off the road as the graphic shows in those scenarios. In fact that's been the biggest hurdle so far in the US in testing, is that the yellow sidemarkers and lines are not consistent between states and areas, and also are often too faded or poorly painted for the opticals in the car to see. That's been less of a problem by far in the EU where they are marked more consistently and the paint isn't faded as often. In fairness to the US before the EU folks jump in and start bashing, our weather and geography is more varied which does make that more of a challenge to maintain through extreme hot and cold seasons.

A couple of interesting things to keep in mind, almost guaranteed within 10-15 years it's estimated all cars and trucks will be self-driven. Semi-trucks are the first to go and trucking companies are chomping at the bit to implement them. In fact the big truck manufacturers have been testing them cross-country on the same highways you've been driving on since 2014 with good success. Likewise the military has been testing them with military trucks on US highways for the last year or two. Both the military and transportation see huge advantages coming with cost savings on not needing drivers, being able to run 24x7, even safety, etc. Truck driver is not a good career to start right now for sure, and is the highest ranked to be an extinct career soon. Then after that consumer vehicles won't be far behind. So people saying that's why I won't get one might be in for a surprise, because it's a tech that is really coming - driven (no pun intended) by big corporation cost savings. And as we all know that always wins out over any other apprehension to change in adoption of new technology. I doubt you'll be able to even buy a car that doesn't self-drive by default in 10-15 years.

[May90]

Unless your car contains self-learning AI, it will behave the way you've designed it to. It won't be able to make moral choices; you, when programming it, however, can make its behavior reflect your morals.

[Hotmail]

Most people would choose to save one person they know over a dozen they don't so until the program can account for that, I don't think that this is a good idea.