4 ms·

Ah, a good, old "let's think of the children" argument. As I said, autonomous cars should always drive according to rules, and places, where children are expect

by kbart 10y ago

Ah, a good, old "let's think of the children" argument. As I said, autonomous cars should always drive according to rules, and places, where children are expected to run into a street (suburbs, school areas etc.), usually have speed limit of 30 km/h (at least in Europe), so it's hard to imagine a deadly scenario at such speeds. However, if children managed to run into a highway, well, then blame their parents for neglect as this such not happen. To fantasize even more, what if there are my children in a car too? Should autopilot kill them as well to save these children on a road?

inimino 10y ago
I'm not making a "think of the children" argument here, but rather pointing out the argument that you didn't really address when you changed the "group of children" to "pedestrians that violated traffic rules". If you actually saw a child appear in the street in front of your car, I don't think the violation of traffic laws would be part of your calculations in the moment. Yes, the scenario given is absurdly contrived, but the issue is real. In any collision avoidance scenario, once things have already gone wrong, you have to make tradeoffs, sometimes involving potential dangers to both people inside and outside of the vehicle. If children run into the highway, blaming the parents doesn't answer the question of what the car should do. If nobody else is on the road, you can swerve. What if there is a vehicle in the lane next to you, will you swerve towards it and risk a minor accident to avoid one that is more likely to be fatal? How much risk would be acceptable to avoid certainly killing a pedestrian? In highway driving sometimes bad things suddenly happen directly in front of you and the only choice is between different accidents. Humans make these decisions and autonomous vehicles are going to have to make them too.
- kbart 10y ago
  Yes, these are (and with autopilot hopefully will be even more) very rare corner cases, but in such cases people instinctively act to survive, so autopilot doing the same is a logical step imho. Of course, if there's a choice between minor accident and safety of pedestrians (children or not, that doesn't really make any difference), autopilot should risk it. But the original case here was "certain death vs children on the street" which I still believe that autopilot should never do.
  - inimino 10y ago
    I think people instinctively balance their survival against others, and drivers differ. I know drivers who will take dangerous evasive maneuvers (to themselves and passengers) to avoid hitting a cat. The difference with self-driving cars is that someone has to write the code, so these tradeoffs becoe explicit and potentially subject to legislation. I think there are easy solutions that sound good but aren't going to hold up after a few accidents happen.

by kbart 10y ago

inimino 10y ago

I'm not making a "think of the children" argument here, but rather pointing out the argument that you didn't really address when you changed the "group of children" to "pedestrians that violated traffic rules". If you actually saw a child appear in the street in front of your car, I don't think the violation of traffic laws would be part of your calculations in the moment. Yes, the scenario given is absurdly contrived, but the issue is real. In any collision avoidance scenario, once things have already gone wrong, you have to make tradeoffs, sometimes involving potential dangers to both people inside and outside of the vehicle. If children run into the highway, blaming the parents doesn't answer the question of what the car should do. If nobody else is on the road, you can swerve. What if there is a vehicle in the lane next to you, will you swerve towards it and risk a minor accident to avoid one that is more likely to be fatal? How much risk would be acceptable to avoid certainly killing a pedestrian? In highway driving sometimes bad things suddenly happen directly in front of you and the only choice is between different accidents. Humans make these decisions and autonomous vehicles are going to have to make them too.

kbart 10y ago
Yes, these are (and with autopilot hopefully will be even more) very rare corner cases, but in such cases people instinctively act to survive, so autopilot doing the same is a logical step imho. Of course, if there's a choice between minor accident and safety of pedestrians (children or not, that doesn't really make any difference), autopilot should risk it. But the original case here was "certain death vs children on the street" which I still believe that autopilot should never do.
- inimino 10y ago
  I think people instinctively balance their survival against others, and drivers differ. I know drivers who will take dangerous evasive maneuvers (to themselves and passengers) to avoid hitting a cat. The difference with self-driving cars is that someone has to write the code, so these tradeoffs becoe explicit and potentially subject to legislation. I think there are easy solutions that sound good but aren't going to hold up after a few accidents happen.