5 ms·

Self driving is, in my opinion, ironically, a trolley problem. If enabled in mainstream usage, we'd probably see total deaths drop, but they'd be shifted to a m

Self driving is, in my opinion, ironically, a trolley problem. If enabled in mainstream usage, we'd probably see total deaths drop, but they'd be shifted to a more random set of people dying for stupider reasons. Would you rather two drunk drivers and an overworked sleepy trucker die; or one guy who could drive safely but was instead driven into an overturned truck.

ghaff 5y ago
I'm not sure it's a trolley problem so much as an automated system that is statistically safer than manual operation but will "randomly" kill people on a regular basis. Which is a legislative/liability problem because outside of possibly rare drug side effects, we don't normally accept consumer-facing products, even if used and maintained properly, randomly killing people--and just shrug our shoulders because stuff happens.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think the OP was referencing the trolley problem because autonomous driving AI is often regarded as a utilitarian problem. In other words, "intent" does not matter, only consequences. In that regard, any ML cost function is purely focused on consequences. In the context of minimizing deaths it wouldn't matter if the software deliberately chose to kill one person, if the cost (presumably total deaths) was minimized. Where I think it gets sticky is that our society does factor in intent (see the various degrees of homicide) and if we're thinking in terms of pure utilitarianism, I'm not sure how this plays into the liability of autonomous software.
omgJustTest 5y ago
Well given that the genetic lottery works differently for different gene pools… I’d say that two drunk drivers or a sleepy trucker are already pretty random. Most success is arbitrary, even genetic success, and we should have compassion replace self-righteousness. A lot of people who are failures or successes don’t “deserve” their fates. Self driving is obviously a vain per suit of personal space for those who can afford it. Automated public transport, or even slightly improved public transport is a much better goal for the us.
sandworm101 5y ago
We can cross that bridge when, if, we come to it. At the moment, AI products are nowhere near as safe as human drivers in no-compromises realworld driving situations (ie a foggy/snowy/icy night, driver asleep, mountain highway etc). If we really cared about using AI to promote safe driving, we would turn it away from the road and towards the human driver. Take the above scenarios. While AI driving is a difficult problem, an AI that can detect a drunk/tired/inept driver is not. Any car could easily be equipped with internal cameras or other systems to tell if a driver is unfit. Any car cold be equipped with a dead man's switch to safely deal with a driver that has fallen asleep. How about a car that calls the cops whenever it thinks its driver may be drunk? Heck, you don't need AI to install a speed governor that would curtail any and all speeding[1]. The fact that the market repeatedly rejects such simple AI implementations tells me that all-up AI driving is a long long way away. [1] My dream is an automatic switch that turns on a police car's lights/sirens every time they break the speed limit. Why else would a marked cop car ever speed unless it was chasing someone?
- MattRix 5y ago
  To be clear, human driving that is augmented by “AI” (lane following, collision detection, blind spot warnings, etc) is much safer than human driving alone. I
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    To a point. There is an inflection when the AI becomes a crutch that allows the human to stop paying attention. Tesla may be at/near this point. For instance: lane assist is great until it causes people to take their hands off the wheel, to stop looking at where they are going. I'd rather see such systems implanted as enforcement mechanisms. Let the AI prevent a car from drifting out of its lane. Let it monitor the lane position and scream at the driver when they start to drift. Don't let the AI become a comfortable crutch that allows the driver to take their mind off the task.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
MattRix 5y ago
This is a trolley problem as much as seatbelts and airbags are. The number of people who get into car accidents is staggering, and it’s certainly not just drunk and tired drivers. Drive assist features like lane keeping already make driving much more safe. There’s no trolley problem here, just huge numbers of reduced deaths across the board.
- bumby 5y ago
  >This is a trolley problem as much as seatbelts and airbags are. I disagree. The trolley problem is concerned with ethical decisions. Seatbelts are passive safety devices and don't make decisions. Airbags make "decisions" based on a sensor input, but my hunch is there is very little ethical dilemma in whether or not to deploy an airbag when a sensor threshold is met. Current driving assist is probably not much of a trolley problem but future self-driving software almost certainly will be tasked with making choices between "bad and worse" which opens up the ethical can of worms about how to define "bad".
  - MattRix 5y ago
    Yes, those (very rare, mostly hypothetical) situations are trolley problems, but OP was making an entirely different argument, referring to self driving as a whole being a form of trolley problem. I think the concerns of self driving “moral dilemma” problems are largely overblown. First, they are such rare situations: I’ve been driving for 20 years and never experienced one, I imagine few people have. Second, the solution is simple anyway: favor the passengers of the current car.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I almost have trouble imagining realistic scenarios that involve deliberately endangering the occupants of the vehicle in order to protect others. (And any manufacturer who designed such a system is probably not going to find many takers.) And, for that matter, there are very few scenarios where swerving and running into something at speed is a better decision than braking hard.
alkonaut 5y ago
Exactly this. I'd go so far as to also include honest mistakes. I'd rather have 10x the risk of being killed by a human making a mistake, than by a computer with a bug. The human making the mistake has a skin in the game (they are physically involved in the accident). Accidents happen, but I know humans try to avoid them. Being killed by a piece of obsolete AI-code done by the lowest bidder for a company that went bankrupt 10 years ago seems much worse. So not only will AI drivers need to be as good as human drivers, they need to be orders of magnitude better before we'll accept them.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  I think I'm the opposite. I'd take the 10x reduction in the probability of dying. I'd take it for myself (I think I'm a fairly good driver, but I know I'm not as safe as I should be). And I'd take it for the 90% of deaths it would save, even if they aren't me. Those other lives matter, too.

ghaff 5y ago

I'm not sure it's a trolley problem so much as an automated system that is statistically safer than manual operation but will "randomly" kill people on a regular basis. Which is a legislative/liability problem because outside of possibly rare drug side effects, we don't normally accept consumer-facing products, even if used and maintained properly, randomly killing people--and just shrug our shoulders because stuff happens.

bumby 5y ago
I think the OP was referencing the trolley problem because autonomous driving AI is often regarded as a utilitarian problem. In other words, "intent" does not matter, only consequences. In that regard, any ML cost function is purely focused on consequences. In the context of minimizing deaths it wouldn't matter if the software deliberately chose to kill one person, if the cost (presumably total deaths) was minimized. Where I think it gets sticky is that our society does factor in intent (see the various degrees of homicide) and if we're thinking in terms of pure utilitarianism, I'm not sure how this plays into the liability of autonomous software.

omgJustTest 5y ago

Well given that the genetic lottery works differently for different gene pools… I’d say that two drunk drivers or a sleepy trucker are already pretty random. Most success is arbitrary, even genetic success, and we should have compassion replace self-righteousness. A lot of people who are failures or successes don’t “deserve” their fates. Self driving is obviously a vain per suit of personal space for those who can afford it. Automated public transport, or even slightly improved public transport is a much better goal for the us.

sandworm101 5y ago

We can cross that bridge when, if, we come to it. At the moment, AI products are nowhere near as safe as human drivers in no-compromises realworld driving situations (ie a foggy/snowy/icy night, driver asleep, mountain highway etc). If we really cared about using AI to promote safe driving, we would turn it away from the road and towards the human driver. Take the above scenarios. While AI driving is a difficult problem, an AI that can detect a drunk/tired/inept driver is not. Any car could easily be equipped with internal cameras or other systems to tell if a driver is unfit. Any car cold be equipped with a dead man's switch to safely deal with a driver that has fallen asleep. How about a car that calls the cops whenever it thinks its driver may be drunk? Heck, you don't need AI to install a speed governor that would curtail any and all speeding[1]. The fact that the market repeatedly rejects such simple AI implementations tells me that all-up AI driving is a long long way away. [1] My dream is an automatic switch that turns on a police car's lights/sirens every time they break the speed limit. Why else would a marked cop car ever speed unless it was chasing someone?

MattRix 5y ago
To be clear, human driving that is augmented by “AI” (lane following, collision detection, blind spot warnings, etc) is much safer than human driving alone. I
- sandworm101 5y ago
  To a point. There is an inflection when the AI becomes a crutch that allows the human to stop paying attention. Tesla may be at/near this point. For instance: lane assist is great until it causes people to take their hands off the wheel, to stop looking at where they are going. I'd rather see such systems implanted as enforcement mechanisms. Let the AI prevent a car from drifting out of its lane. Let it monitor the lane position and scream at the driver when they start to drift. Don't let the AI become a comfortable crutch that allows the driver to take their mind off the task.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

MattRix 5y ago

This is a trolley problem as much as seatbelts and airbags are. The number of people who get into car accidents is staggering, and it’s certainly not just drunk and tired drivers. Drive assist features like lane keeping already make driving much more safe. There’s no trolley problem here, just huge numbers of reduced deaths across the board.

bumby 5y ago
>This is a trolley problem as much as seatbelts and airbags are. I disagree. The trolley problem is concerned with ethical decisions. Seatbelts are passive safety devices and don't make decisions. Airbags make "decisions" based on a sensor input, but my hunch is there is very little ethical dilemma in whether or not to deploy an airbag when a sensor threshold is met. Current driving assist is probably not much of a trolley problem but future self-driving software almost certainly will be tasked with making choices between "bad and worse" which opens up the ethical can of worms about how to define "bad".
- MattRix 5y ago
  Yes, those (very rare, mostly hypothetical) situations are trolley problems, but OP was making an entirely different argument, referring to self driving as a whole being a form of trolley problem. I think the concerns of self driving “moral dilemma” problems are largely overblown. First, they are such rare situations: I’ve been driving for 20 years and never experienced one, I imagine few people have. Second, the solution is simple anyway: favor the passengers of the current car.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I almost have trouble imagining realistic scenarios that involve deliberately endangering the occupants of the vehicle in order to protect others. (And any manufacturer who designed such a system is probably not going to find many takers.) And, for that matter, there are very few scenarios where swerving and running into something at speed is a better decision than braking hard.

alkonaut 5y ago

Exactly this. I'd go so far as to also include honest mistakes. I'd rather have 10x the risk of being killed by a human making a mistake, than by a computer with a bug. The human making the mistake has a skin in the game (they are physically involved in the accident). Accidents happen, but I know humans try to avoid them. Being killed by a piece of obsolete AI-code done by the lowest bidder for a company that went bankrupt 10 years ago seems much worse. So not only will AI drivers need to be as good as human drivers, they need to be orders of magnitude better before we'll accept them.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I think I'm the opposite. I'd take the 10x reduction in the probability of dying. I'd take it for myself (I think I'm a fairly good driver, but I know I'm not as safe as I should be). And I'd take it for the 90% of deaths it would save, even if they aren't me. Those other lives matter, too.