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I think that self-driving cars should act in the self interest of the owners. It will encourage people to use self-driving cars and decrease road deaths. Also,

I think that self-driving cars should act in the self interest of the owners. It will encourage people to use self-driving cars and decrease road deaths. Also, if you are at a rail yard and see something hurtling toward 5 workmen and can push a fat man in front to protect them, you should refrain. The workmen had the opportunity and duty to take actions to prepare for and prevent rogue train cars. The fat man should not have a duty to be constantly on guard against assault.

mikeash 11y ago
People make this out to be far more complex than it needs to be. Just give the car a fast connection to the credit bureaus and have it minimize the sum of the FICO scores of those killed.
- afarrell 11y ago
  ...huh? Oh, this comment is satire. Eh, I really don't think people on HN tend to explicitly value others according to wealth. The failure mode some people have is not being fully aware of the degree that a certain level of wealth or stability during childhood is a prerequisite for all but a very few to get to a solid technical [self-]education.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    It's satire, but not meant to be about HN readers. It's just an amusing way to cut the Gordian Knot and riff on society's treatment of the less well-off.
ceejayoz 11y ago
> I think that self-driving cars should act in the self interest of the owners. To what extent? At some point, we're going to have to decide as a society what call a self-driving car has to make in situations like "I can run down this family in the cross-walk or get rear-ended by that oncoming vehicle".
- zyxley 11y ago
  I'd rather see a focus on smarter and faster braking then on solving contrived moral dilemmas.
  - infecto 11y ago
    This please.
  - mikeash 11y ago
    I don't understand why this keeps coming up. I have never seen or even heard of a driver getting into a situation where there's any sort of moral dilemma in how they react. There's always an obvious best answer or a bunch of equivalently good answers. For the one-in-a-trillion cases where this is not true, it's OK if the car reacts sub-optimally. It will still be vastly better than human drivers, who frequently react sub-optimally in unambiguous situations.
  - Qworg 11y ago
    There are physical limits on how fast or smart you can make braking. We make thousands of unconscious decisions while driving - many of them moral/ambiguous. "Should I pass this car in the intersection even though it is breaking the law?" "Can I squeeze past this bicyclist even though it forces them towards the curb?" The core of most of these arguments assume a fully autonomous world - and it just won't work like that.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- intopieces 11y ago
  When autonomous vehicles encounter an obstacle, they brake. Moreover, why in this problem, that appears in absolutely every thread about self-driving cars, is there a family in a crosswalk with no awareness whatsoever of a speeding vehicle? Are they deaf and blind without assistance? This is not a joke. The car will be aware of the presence of the crosswalk. It will slow long before arriving at it. So the deaf and blind family will likely be safe.

mikeash 11y ago

People make this out to be far more complex than it needs to be. Just give the car a fast connection to the credit bureaus and have it minimize the sum of the FICO scores of those killed.

afarrell 11y ago
...huh? Oh, this comment is satire. Eh, I really don't think people on HN tend to explicitly value others according to wealth. The failure mode some people have is not being fully aware of the degree that a certain level of wealth or stability during childhood is a prerequisite for all but a very few to get to a solid technical [self-]education.
- mikeash 11y ago
  It's satire, but not meant to be about HN readers. It's just an amusing way to cut the Gordian Knot and riff on society's treatment of the less well-off.

ceejayoz 11y ago

> I think that self-driving cars should act in the self interest of the owners. To what extent? At some point, we're going to have to decide as a society what call a self-driving car has to make in situations like "I can run down this family in the cross-walk or get rear-ended by that oncoming vehicle".

zyxley 11y ago
I'd rather see a focus on smarter and faster braking then on solving contrived moral dilemmas.
- infecto 11y ago
  This please.
- mikeash 11y ago
  I don't understand why this keeps coming up. I have never seen or even heard of a driver getting into a situation where there's any sort of moral dilemma in how they react. There's always an obvious best answer or a bunch of equivalently good answers. For the one-in-a-trillion cases where this is not true, it's OK if the car reacts sub-optimally. It will still be vastly better than human drivers, who frequently react sub-optimally in unambiguous situations.
- Qworg 11y ago
  There are physical limits on how fast or smart you can make braking. We make thousands of unconscious decisions while driving - many of them moral/ambiguous. "Should I pass this car in the intersection even though it is breaking the law?" "Can I squeeze past this bicyclist even though it forces them towards the curb?" The core of most of these arguments assume a fully autonomous world - and it just won't work like that.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
intopieces 11y ago
When autonomous vehicles encounter an obstacle, they brake. Moreover, why in this problem, that appears in absolutely every thread about self-driving cars, is there a family in a crosswalk with no awareness whatsoever of a speeding vehicle? Are they deaf and blind without assistance? This is not a joke. The car will be aware of the presence of the crosswalk. It will slow long before arriving at it. So the deaf and blind family will likely be safe.