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Relevant comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/self-driving-car-ethics http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/self-driving-car-ethics And an actual extended troll

Relevant comic: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/self-driving-car-ethics http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/self-driving-car-ethics And an actual extended trolley dilemma, wrapped in a joke: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3556 http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3556 Ethically, are all people's lives equal? If not, is it wise to encode it into our robots? From the article, the fact people won't use a car that favors the children over the occupants is interesting, and perhaps justifiable. After all, humans favor their own families and friends -- maybe it's equally reasonable for robots to prioritize the safety of their owners first.

eyelidlessness 10y ago
Ethically, empowering machines to make ethical decisions is not worth a discussion. The reason that ethics is a philosophical pursuit is because it's unsolved. Humans can debate the merits of a given ethical philosophy, but machines cannot stop and contemplate the consequences. We have never stopped engaging this discussion. Encoding it into circuits and setting it loose is not participation, it's profit. For whatever is wrong with modern politics, and most of it is wrong, it isn't a closed book. We deserve better than that.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  If we pursue continue to pursue autonomous technologies, machines will inevitably be put in situations where they make life and death decisions for us, because there isn't a human around to make those split-second decisions in real time. So encoding our ethics is going to happen whether we like it or not. It's just a question of whether we as a society talk it out and make these ethical choices explicitly, or wait for corporations to make those choices for us.
  - eyelidlessness 10y ago
    That's my point. It's unsolved. We are allowing corporations to make choices for profit that humans have not resolved for ethics. We should categorically reject these sorts of automations because they present a danger we can't determine, according to the ways we evaluate danger.
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      "they present a danger we can't determine" Why not? Counting the number of deaths per passenger-kilometer seems pretty straightforward. What if self-driving cars wind up killing fewer pedestrians than manual cars, even if occupant safety is prioritized?
  - bostik 10y ago
    I am cynical enough to believe that ethics will have very little to do with it. They make good PR, but don't hold your breath expecting them to play out in real life. Ethics are complex, and complex in computing implies brittle. Because life has a tendency to imitate art (satire in particular), I'll just note that SwiftOnSecurity captured the essence of the dilemma: https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/773022596388360192 https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/77302259638836019...

eyelidlessness 10y ago

Ethically, empowering machines to make ethical decisions is not worth a discussion. The reason that ethics is a philosophical pursuit is because it's unsolved. Humans can debate the merits of a given ethical philosophy, but machines cannot stop and contemplate the consequences. We have never stopped engaging this discussion. Encoding it into circuits and setting it loose is not participation, it's profit. For whatever is wrong with modern politics, and most of it is wrong, it isn't a closed book. We deserve better than that.

smallnamespace 10y ago
If we pursue continue to pursue autonomous technologies, machines will inevitably be put in situations where they make life and death decisions for us, because there isn't a human around to make those split-second decisions in real time. So encoding our ethics is going to happen whether we like it or not. It's just a question of whether we as a society talk it out and make these ethical choices explicitly, or wait for corporations to make those choices for us.
- eyelidlessness 10y ago
  That's my point. It's unsolved. We are allowing corporations to make choices for profit that humans have not resolved for ethics. We should categorically reject these sorts of automations because they present a danger we can't determine, according to the ways we evaluate danger.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    "they present a danger we can't determine" Why not? Counting the number of deaths per passenger-kilometer seems pretty straightforward. What if self-driving cars wind up killing fewer pedestrians than manual cars, even if occupant safety is prioritized?
- bostik 10y ago
  I am cynical enough to believe that ethics will have very little to do with it. They make good PR, but don't hold your breath expecting them to play out in real life. Ethics are complex, and complex in computing implies brittle. Because life has a tendency to imitate art (satire in particular), I'll just note that SwiftOnSecurity captured the essence of the dilemma: https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/773022596388360192 https://twitter.com/swiftonsecurity/status/77302259638836019...