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Yes; but the "one" on the tracks is now the passenger in the car. Does the car divert from hitting a bunch of people on the road ahead if it means killing its

Yes; but the "one" on the tracks is now the passenger in the car. Does the car divert from hitting a bunch of people on the road ahead if it means killing its passenger? With autonomous cars, suddenly a lot of hypotheticals get really real.

anonymfus 8y ago
These ethics standards say yes, because no discrimination between people is allowed, only number of them matters.
- thisacctforreal 8y ago
  At least incentives for carpooling won’t disappear.
- king_phil 8y ago
  That's not correct. German Federal Constitutional Court already decided that you can't weigh the number of lifes. The decision was based on "can we shoot down a plane and kill 300 when the plane would crash into a stadium and kill 30.000". You can't shoot the plane down (legally).
  - zaarn 8y ago
    IIRC if there was a situation in form of "3 children on road" and "1 old lady on the sidewalk" and you only had a couple seconds to react, you would be fine hitting either, there is a concept of "Übergesetzlicher Notstand" (emergency beyond the law) which hits exactly these rather rare and morally ambiguous situations. The trolley problem as bystander is a different thing and generally not acting is the legally safer option though in both cases the likely sentence would be minor through various means. edit/additional note: while you can't shoot down the plane legally and no soldier will be obligated to follow such an order, they would likely also fall under the "Übergesetzlicher Notstand". It's not a legal basis but simply a defense.
_o_ 8y ago
Yes this is a real problem. With the human driver this is based on his reflexes (or self preservation). The self driving system changes that, someone needs to program (or learn) software to behave one way or the other, either killing the driver or killing people. But the question is if customers will buy car that might harm them deliberately or if country will allow selling of cars who deliberately harm people to protect the driver. This one is not easy to solve, currently the self driving industry is ignoring it, but it will have to be resolved.

anonymfus 8y ago

These ethics standards say yes, because no discrimination between people is allowed, only number of them matters.

thisacctforreal 8y ago
At least incentives for carpooling won’t disappear.
king_phil 8y ago
That's not correct. German Federal Constitutional Court already decided that you can't weigh the number of lifes. The decision was based on "can we shoot down a plane and kill 300 when the plane would crash into a stadium and kill 30.000". You can't shoot the plane down (legally).
- zaarn 8y ago
  IIRC if there was a situation in form of "3 children on road" and "1 old lady on the sidewalk" and you only had a couple seconds to react, you would be fine hitting either, there is a concept of "Übergesetzlicher Notstand" (emergency beyond the law) which hits exactly these rather rare and morally ambiguous situations. The trolley problem as bystander is a different thing and generally not acting is the legally safer option though in both cases the likely sentence would be minor through various means. edit/additional note: while you can't shoot down the plane legally and no soldier will be obligated to follow such an order, they would likely also fall under the "Übergesetzlicher Notstand". It's not a legal basis but simply a defense.

_o_ 8y ago

Yes this is a real problem. With the human driver this is based on his reflexes (or self preservation). The self driving system changes that, someone needs to program (or learn) software to behave one way or the other, either killing the driver or killing people. But the question is if customers will buy car that might harm them deliberately or if country will allow selling of cars who deliberately harm people to protect the driver. This one is not easy to solve, currently the self driving industry is ignoring it, but it will have to be resolved.