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I respectfully disagree. Car crashes killed 38000 people in 2015, and injured around 8 million in the US alone. Designing any vehicle involves ethical choices
by doriangray1 10y ago
I respectfully disagree. Car crashes killed 38000 people in 2015, and injured around 8 million in the US alone. Designing any vehicle involves ethical choices about safety and the US has developed traffic laws over time to try to protect the safety of drivers.
Autonomous vehicles will surely save lives compared to thier manual counterparts, but we shouldn't discount the ethical questions involved.
Everyone has the Right to own property and to modify the property that they own. If I wanted to tear my car's muffler out and remove the break lights, that would be my constitutional right. However, the above right does not allow me to go driving on public roads at nighttime - because that would be violating other Driver's rights to safety.
It is the same concept with self driving cars, and our legal system will eventually develope an enforceable code which (hopefully) will protect the rights of everyone in an equal measure.
*I am an Environmental Law professional.
- mikeash 10y agoI totally agree that there are plenty of ethical choices in general for self-driving cars. I'm only addressing the idea that self-driving cars will need to make ethical choices about who to kill in a crash. That specific ethical conundrum is constantly brought up in discussions about autonomous vehicles, and I really don't see it happening with any frequency.