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Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

12 points by cardamomo 11y ago

POleszkiewicz 11y ago
First of all, people in front of the car do not appear out of nowhere, and a machine driving a car has much easier job to calculate different possibilities than a human. After all it all comes down to speed / mass /energy / momentum, and these are relatively simple calculations. That being said, I guess, that the autonomous car ethics should be configurable to some extent (and existing research shows, that people exhibit much more altruism in this case than one could expect). Also, the autonomous car ethics should protect the occupants from suicidal / homicidal people that could cause harm to the occupant by getting into the path of the car intentionally. One case could be a homicidal person driving manually with a bunch of kids in a car, knowing that autonomous vehicles would prefer self destruction over a head on collision.
- colanderman 11y ago
  Right. Intent/culpability definitely plays into ethical decisions. Two pedestrians crossing legally at a crosswalk? Occupant. Two pedestrians willingly sitting in a barren stretch of road for no good reason? Pedestrians. Just as I should not be allowed to take others' lives simply because I selfishly value my own, others should not be allowed to take my life simply because they are stupid. Unfortunately such decisions are very hard to make and depend on so many variables. In today's world, it can take years in a courtroom to determine who was in the right in such a scenario. Very curious to see how this plays out in the upcoming decades...
  - POleszkiewicz 11y ago
    I would rather say "decade" instead of "decades", while self driving cars are arriving, I would argue that "self flying cars" are just around the corner, and will make many of these dillemas irrelevant. It is much easier to avoid any kind of collision in 3D space, also removing any kinds of traffic jams etc.
readme 11y ago
I could see this concept making it into taxis. I don't see it ever making it into personal vehicles.
- POleszkiewicz 11y ago
  I can see both, but... The self driving taxi will kill automotive market as it is now. If you could use an auto-taxi for $.20 a mile and get it in 20 seconds... why would you need to own a car? And for longer trips? Most people would need something with more range / performance probably for 3-5% of the time, so instead of buying a Ford Mondeo etc. they could take a car from a motorpool, paying for usage, and they could take a Porshe or a Jag... still paying less.

12 points by cardamomo 11y ago

First of all, people in front of the car do not appear out of nowhere, and a machine driving a car has much easier job to calculate different possibilities than a human. After all it all comes down to speed / mass /energy / momentum, and these are relatively simple calculations. That being said, I guess, that the autonomous car ethics should be configurable to some extent (and existing research shows, that people exhibit much more altruism in this case than one could expect). Also, the autonomous car ethics should protect the occupants from suicidal / homicidal people that could cause harm to the occupant by getting into the path of the car intentionally. One case could be a homicidal person driving manually with a bunch of kids in a car, knowing that autonomous vehicles would prefer self destruction over a head on collision.

colanderman 11y ago
Right. Intent/culpability definitely plays into ethical decisions. Two pedestrians crossing legally at a crosswalk? Occupant. Two pedestrians willingly sitting in a barren stretch of road for no good reason? Pedestrians. Just as I should not be allowed to take others' lives simply because I selfishly value my own, others should not be allowed to take my life simply because they are stupid. Unfortunately such decisions are very hard to make and depend on so many variables. In today's world, it can take years in a courtroom to determine who was in the right in such a scenario. Very curious to see how this plays out in the upcoming decades...
- POleszkiewicz 11y ago
  I would rather say "decade" instead of "decades", while self driving cars are arriving, I would argue that "self flying cars" are just around the corner, and will make many of these dillemas irrelevant. It is much easier to avoid any kind of collision in 3D space, also removing any kinds of traffic jams etc.

readme 11y ago

I could see this concept making it into taxis. I don't see it ever making it into personal vehicles.

POleszkiewicz 11y ago
I can see both, but... The self driving taxi will kill automotive market as it is now. If you could use an auto-taxi for $.20 a mile and get it in 20 seconds... why would you need to own a car? And for longer trips? Most people would need something with more range / performance probably for 3-5% of the time, so instead of buying a Ford Mondeo etc. they could take a car from a motorpool, paying for usage, and they could take a Porshe or a Jag... still paying less.