4 ms·

I wish people would stop bringing up the trolley problem as somehow relevant to self driving cars. In any situation,a car is going to brake as hard as possible

• greeneggs 10y ago
  The trolley problem is just an extreme example, that people can easily understand and think about. Less extreme versions of it occur all the time. For example, say you are driving along a road, passing a bicyclist. You'd like to give the cyclist more room, but there's an oncoming car in the lane next to you. How much room do you give? At exactly what threshold do you decide to wait to pass the cyclist? What if the cyclist is a kid? All the time, the driver has to make decisions that trade off the safety of multiple parties, from the car's occupants to other drivers, to bicyclists and pedestrians. In reality, these will almost always be statistical tradeoffs, and usually comparing very small probabilities of accidents, but they are still real ethical decisions that have to be made.
  • inimino 10y ago
    Exactly, and if a few high-profile accidents give a manufacturer a reputation as a public menace, lawsuits and legislation won't be far behind.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • imtringued 10y ago
    If there is an oncoming car you don't overtake.
    • AstralStorm 10y ago
      I know a plenty of people that attempt to squeeze past the cyclist giving them scant room. Almost 100% of the time, despite it being forbidden by law here.
    • Scarblac 10y ago
      If the road is really broad and there is plenty of space for the cyclist and you without getting close to the lane the oncoming car is in, of course you overtake. The interesting case is in between.
• tdaltonc 10y ago
  This drives me crazy. It seems like the worst sort of sophomoric "philosophizing." Adults do not worry about weather or not to "pull the lever." They worry about better fencing and signage to keep people off of tracks. They worry about better ways to use alert people about approaching trains, or early warning systems for train drivers. If we find ourselves faced with "pulling the lever" everyone has already failed miserable.
• inimino 10y ago
  The trolley problem is a simplification of a difficult ethical question. I wish people would stop dismissing it as though whatever simple answer they come up with makes the problem go away. In many situations, a car is going to have to choose between alternatives that each carry different risks. There simply are no universally acceptable simple rules to follow in such cases.
  • imtringued 10y ago
    There is one universally acceptable rule: Do not choose your victim. If they are unlucky, they are unlucky. That's all there is to it. Choosing who should be "unlucky" doesn't solve the problem. By assuming unavoidable failure you effectively give up solving the underlying problem. The solution is to avoid the failure in the first place.
    • aoeuasdf1 10y ago
      No system can avoid failure 100% of the time. It may find itself going too fast with a unexpected loss of some control - brake failure, intentional sabotage, (imperceptible) oil slick, whatever. However, the system still has some control to choose between several terrible and costly outcomes. It must choose its victim. How should it chose?
      • AstralStorm 10y ago
        Does it really matter? Human drivers are dime a dozen and act vastly differently under stress. It has not been tested. Armchair scenarios do not help, we need actual research in simulators at high stress.
        • inimino 10y ago
          Does what humans actually do matter? What matters is what we want the machines to do, which is going to be worked out between buyers, manufacturers, lawyers, lawmakers, and the rest of us.
    • 10y ago
• miles7 10y ago
  Why are we holding computers to such higher standards than we hold ourselves? I wouldn't know what to do in the trolley situation either but I can still get a driver's license. As long as the computer makes a decision where we can say "that was very reasonable, even if better decisions existed" then it seems ok to me.