5 ms·
Article argues, "autopilot could let people who are blind and disabled drive now, where they couldn't drive before. but they could never get killed in a car acc
by fennecfoxen 10y ago
Article argues, "autopilot could let people who are blind and disabled drive now, where they couldn't drive before. but they could never get killed in a car accident while driving before, so this is ethically questionable."
Article's logic is dumber than a sack of hair.
- seangrant 10y agoSummed up by the author's question "Would we really accept higher statistical safety, if that came with new risks and accident types that we could easily avoid today?" Who would say no to this?
- guptaneil 10y agoAnybody who fears the unknown, which is most people.
- placeybordeaux 10y agoIf you frame it entirely as safety most people will say that they want everyone else to use a driverless car, but they will keep on driving themselves, because everyone thinks they are a great driver. The reason why people will choose to use driverless cars will most likely be convenience, safety will just be a nice additional win.
- randyrand 10y agoAs an alternative you could just have automated braking, adjust steering, etc in critical situations.
- marcosdumay 10y agoLots of people don't fly because they are afraid of planes, for example. Expect people to be highly resistant to that change at the beginning.
- aetherson 10y agoHmm, you seem to believe that people who don't fly because they are afraid of plans are afraid of planes because they have a mistaken belief about the statistical safety of planes. My experience with people who are afraid of planes is that they know planes are safer than cars, but none the less feel a visceral, non-rational fear of the airplane that makes flying deeply uncomfortable for them. Kind of like how you might feel if you were covered in insects, even if you knew that the insects were non-venomous, non-disease carrying, and clean.
- soperj 10y agoYep, they still couldn't drive because they could never obtain a valid drivers license. Blind & Disabled people can be killed in crashes right now when they're passengers.
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoThe article is just responding to the level of intelligence of arguments saying we should all soon stop driving and have automated driving everywhere. I am all for self driving cars, but the common statistical argument (lower number of deaths than humans) for them is just silly for a number of reasons.
- whack 10y agoSuch as?
- saulrh 10y agoUntil we figure out immortality, everybody that is born will die. The most effective strategy currently available for preventing deaths, then, is to put an immediate moratorium on births, capping the future total number of deaths at the current world population. If you're going to go the utilitarian route, you need a more complex utility function. Otherwise you end up with really weird badness.
- Draiken 10y agoWhy is that a bad argument? It's a pragmatic approach which I believe to be A LOT BETTER than the status quo. Unfortunately people prefer the current way of implementing things: pretend to make everyone happy because people can't think 5 seconds ahead of time or even imagine that their actions affect others. It's so easy to sell everything for the small, immediate benefits while ignoring the bigger picture.
- cscurmudgeon 10y agoOne reason: you can never calculate that accurately statistically given that the technology involved is extremely complex. Other reasons here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Criticisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism#Criticisms
- gwern 10y agoI was expecting an ieee.org article to point out that Tesla's statistics were rather misleading. Instead, we got that. Well, that was a thing, I guess.
- ChuckMcM 10y agoI think you were looking for "not even wrong" which is the lowest evaluation of an academic argument possible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong
- SomeCallMeTim 10y agoThe article is arguing for inaction in the Trolley Problem [1]. In short: You have a choice between saving five people and letting one other person die, or doing nothing and letting five people die. Which is a controversial position, but not stupid exactly. I would call it misguided, and certainly not a very utilitarian position. And given the options I personally would vote for the utilitarian answer: Save five people even if the one who dies wasn't otherwise threatened. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
- aetherson 10y agoDo you similarly advocate that we should, right now, today, in real life policy, set up a program where we check people for matches to multiple people needing organs, and if one healthy person's organs can save the lives of 2+ people, murder that healthy person and take his/her organs?
- dalore 10y agoNo, because the risk of surgery and transplant, plus the initial health of the person needing the organ, means it's not 100% certain it will succeed. But leaving the organ in the original person will.
- aetherson 10y agoObviously controllable for. Do you support the program if we kill only people that we believe are statistically likely to save more than 1 life?
- billforsternz 10y agoYou should have stopped at No.
- Strilanc 10y agoKinda. I think it would fail utterly in practice. The per-person incentives are all wrong. You're less likely to get picked if you ruin one of your kidneys, for example. "Donors" are going to be unwilling in general, and that will cause a lot of trouble and turmoil. Lots of protesting. Not to mention any abuse of the system would be kind of horrifying. But the general idea of substituting "bad luck you got a disease" with "bad luck you lose the lottery", when there's only half as many lottery losers as there were disease losers... maybe that's not so bad. When it comes to trolley problems, you also have to imagine yourself on the track. Do nothing and there's a 5/6 chance you die. Throw the switch, and there's a 1/6 chance you die.