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With autonomous public robots, it becomes fair to question their programming. For instance I was derided on this venue for unreasonably introducing the 'trolley

With autonomous public robots, it becomes fair to question their programming. For instance I was derided on this venue for unreasonably introducing the 'trolley car' philosophical puzzle unnecessarily into the mix. But already programmers have intentionally written code to react when facing this dilemma. We just don't know what code they put in there. Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. It knows this; it understands its vehicle handling to many decimal places. So what should it do? Continue futilely braking to a likely-fatal accident when it impacts the truck? Or swerve to avoid? Swerving may involves other people now: people standing by the side of the road, or emergency vehicles and personnel at work. Even the people in cars behind, auto-driving or not they are part of this. We hit the truck; they hit us. Or we swerve; they hit the truck. You see? Kill my passenger, or potentially more by saving my passenger. It's not simple, and not obvious (thus the longevity of the philosophical puzzle). But now robots are making the decision. We can make laws to force the programmers' hands. Then it's no longer the intentionality of the programmer we have to examine. It's the rules and regulations we put in place, the intentionality of the regulator, of the standards committee. Ultimately of voters. My humble opinion is, autodriving cars should never leave the roadway. See, the people on the road have voluntarily put themselves 'in the game'. Kids playing by the side of the road are not part of this; they should under no circumstances ever be involved if possible. Anyway, the trolley car problem. It sucks. It's here.

ReptileMan 3y ago
>Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. That is physically extremely rare - trucks have lower deceleration and higher breaking distance than high performance passenger cars. Also why TF is not the autodriving car keeping distance allowing it to break in time. The focus should be on not getting into shitty situations - and because AI attention is unlimited, we can do all kinds of sensors and also mesh the cards, couldn't be bored and is vigilant 24/7 it should be theoretically possible.
- dirtyv 3y ago
  The specific example is beside the point. There are any number of events that can happen outside of a driver's control, human or computer, that could cause this or a similar predicament, e.g. the truck could have just changed lanes abruptly without signaling
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Unfortuately pedantry is all too frequent, and haunts this site like a specter.
msluyter 3y ago
> So what should it do? Continue futilely braking to a likely-fatal accident when it impacts the truck? Or swerve to avoid? Just speculating, but I'd wager we end up with a suboptimal solution to particular instances like this in favor of a general policy that is a) predictable, and b) minimizes liability. IOW, the car will be programmed to brake rather than swerve, because swerving opens many unpredictable cans of worms, as you've noted. Braking may be the worse answer here, but as a general matter, I think you're going to have an easier time in court arguing that the car did its best to brake to avoid a collision vs. arguing that the fact that it swerved and, say, hit a schoolbus or went over a cliff.
roflmaostc 3y ago
The trolley problem is idealistic and in reality there won't be almost never a either ... or. In practice, these days most likely a neural net decides what is the best maneuver to avoid serious harm to the people in its car. As alternative the net could try to enforce rules that "global harm" should be minimized. And then both options as in the trolley problem are most likely not equal, in terms of probability.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> My humble opinion is, autodriving cars should never leave the roadway. See, the people on the road have voluntarily put themselves 'in the game'. I think this is as close to the "correct" answer for the Trolleycar problem as one can get. Even when your passenger is the Nobel winning cancer scientist and the hapless bystanders are "worthless criminals" (or whatever arbitrary utility standard we suppose society might choose). Restricting the fallout to those who choose to use autonomous devices while totally protecting "externalities" also aligns with market forces, if you believe in those. The autonomous car absolutely should kill the passengers, even if a better utilitarian outcome seems available but involving others who did not choose to play that game. And herein lies the current deep fault in all technologies (but particularly digital ones): The convenience of the few (or even the majority) is becoming an imposition on the welfare of others who do not choose or want to play that game. It is, in these terms, quite simply "tyranny".
narag 3y ago
Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. Not sure if it matters for your example, but if that happens to a human, it's his fault for not keeping a safe following distance. It could also be the truck's driver fault if the sudden stop is not justified, but in the case of the robot, it should be programmed to keep the distance.
- c0pium 3y ago
  (As of now) You’re being downvoted by people who don’t leave enough following room on the highway. This is however the correct answer. Collisions need to be avoided by assuming others will do stupid things. Because they will.
  - tivert 3y ago
    However, I wouldn't be surprised of some technologist has been hyping self-driving technology as a way to achieve a magic utopia by increasing efficiency by getting rid of those kinds of safeguards (e.g.) safe following distance), because machines are perfect won't make mistakes. After all, once we get rid of those pesky humans, shouldn't cars be able to barrel down the highway at 100mph with the following distance of stop-and-go traffic, because of the magic of internet and algorithms?
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Perhaps the truck hit something else and stopped very abruptly. You can be part of a multi-car accident; happens all the time. Regardless of fault there's the issue of programming are response, which was the point here.
  - narag 3y ago
    I agree, but if I understood correctly your previous reasoning, the passengers of the robotic vehicle put themselves 'in the game', not only more than roadside bystanders, but also more than others in vehicles that are driven respecting the rules. I used to drive to work every day, very busy highway, and faced an annoying dilemma. If I kept a safe distance, the driver immediately behind me would pass me inserting himself in the gap, forcing me to brake and leaving more distance, inviting a new vehicle to pass me. Or I could tailgate and risk being part of the next multiple colision accident. After seen a couple of those, no thanks. This is the kind of human idiocy that robots were suppossed to avoid. But if they're going to mimic it, what's the point? We will be competing with them and sooner than later, we will see how big companies behind them will outmanouver us, also in courts. So not as optimistic as you about regulation.
bell-cot 3y ago
Expecting an autonomous robot to be omniscient and omnibenevolent is BS from cool-sounding Sci-Fi stories and ivory-tower philosophers. The roads are currently full of human drivers, and ~zero of their driver-training programs include anything resembling trolley problems. A reasonable programming goal and standard for autonomous robots would be: "Behave like a human of decently-above-average skill, training, and safety-consciousness".
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Yet lawyers are stratospherically known for arguing anything that will win their case. Being reasonable is not any defense, not for a computer. And, this argument doesn't address at all what to do about this well-understood traffic situation and the programming we will accept.
  - bell-cot 3y ago
    > ...reasonable is not any defense, not for... ...any case where the lawyer knows there could be Deep Pockets in play. Quite true. And there is a wide gulf between "X would be a reasonable engineering and regulatory standard", and "X is the current standard". OTOH... > Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. It knows this; it understands its vehicle handling to many decimal places ... a likely-fatal accident ... This is not a "well-understood traffic situation", and it may not be physically possible without a crazy assumption or few. The autodriving car has brakes, a crumple zone in front, air bags, etc. Cars generally have much shorter braking distances than trucks, and the autodriving car presumably has quick reactions. Was the autodriving car blindly approaching the truck at already-lethal (even if the truck had not stopped) speeds? Is the truck loaded with high-sensitivity explosives, that a fairly minor collision will set off?
c0pium 3y ago
> already programmers have intentionally written code to react when facing this dilemma Citation needed. > was derided on this venue for unreasonably introducing the 'trolley car' philosophical Appropriately.
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  Citation? That auto-driving cars exist. That is not in doubt. They auto-brake for road obstruction; that can be observed in any number of youtube videos. Such experiments are conducted by highway safety boards; Tesla famously failed some of them. It would be more helpful to post comments that illuminate the issue or introduce new ideas. "You so stupid" is not one of those posts. Try to do better.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - c0pium 3y ago
    You should google the word “intentionally”, you’re using it incorrectly. The unfounded assumption that I was challenging was the existence of trolley problem solvers being deliberately written. Nobody is doing that.
    - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
      See, there was a comment that had value! Thank you.
      - c0pium 3y ago
        Oh the irony.
dist-epoch 3y ago
> See, the people on the road have voluntarily put themselves 'in the game'. Kids playing by the side of the road are not part of this; Are people (and kids) crossing the street at a marking "in the game"?

ReptileMan 3y ago

>Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. That is physically extremely rare - trucks have lower deceleration and higher breaking distance than high performance passenger cars. Also why TF is not the autodriving car keeping distance allowing it to break in time. The focus should be on not getting into shitty situations - and because AI attention is unlimited, we can do all kinds of sensors and also mesh the cards, couldn't be bored and is vigilant 24/7 it should be theoretically possible.

dirtyv 3y ago
The specific example is beside the point. There are any number of events that can happen outside of a driver's control, human or computer, that could cause this or a similar predicament, e.g. the truck could have just changed lanes abruptly without signaling
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Unfortuately pedantry is all too frequent, and haunts this site like a specter.

msluyter 3y ago

> So what should it do? Continue futilely braking to a likely-fatal accident when it impacts the truck? Or swerve to avoid? Just speculating, but I'd wager we end up with a suboptimal solution to particular instances like this in favor of a general policy that is a) predictable, and b) minimizes liability. IOW, the car will be programmed to brake rather than swerve, because swerving opens many unpredictable cans of worms, as you've noted. Braking may be the worse answer here, but as a general matter, I think you're going to have an easier time in court arguing that the car did its best to brake to avoid a collision vs. arguing that the fact that it swerved and, say, hit a schoolbus or went over a cliff.

roflmaostc 3y ago

The trolley problem is idealistic and in reality there won't be almost never a either ... or. In practice, these days most likely a neural net decides what is the best maneuver to avoid serious harm to the people in its car. As alternative the net could try to enforce rules that "global harm" should be minimized. And then both options as in the trolley problem are most likely not equal, in terms of probability.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> My humble opinion is, autodriving cars should never leave the roadway. See, the people on the road have voluntarily put themselves 'in the game'. I think this is as close to the "correct" answer for the Trolleycar problem as one can get. Even when your passenger is the Nobel winning cancer scientist and the hapless bystanders are "worthless criminals" (or whatever arbitrary utility standard we suppose society might choose). Restricting the fallout to those who choose to use autonomous devices while totally protecting "externalities" also aligns with market forces, if you believe in those. The autonomous car absolutely should kill the passengers, even if a better utilitarian outcome seems available but involving others who did not choose to play that game. And herein lies the current deep fault in all technologies (but particularly digital ones): The convenience of the few (or even the majority) is becoming an imposition on the welfare of others who do not choose or want to play that game. It is, in these terms, quite simply "tyranny".

narag 3y ago

Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. Not sure if it matters for your example, but if that happens to a human, it's his fault for not keeping a safe following distance. It could also be the truck's driver fault if the sudden stop is not justified, but in the case of the robot, it should be programmed to keep the distance.

c0pium 3y ago
(As of now) You’re being downvoted by people who don’t leave enough following room on the highway. This is however the correct answer. Collisions need to be avoided by assuming others will do stupid things. Because they will.
- tivert 3y ago
  However, I wouldn't be surprised of some technologist has been hyping self-driving technology as a way to achieve a magic utopia by increasing efficiency by getting rid of those kinds of safeguards (e.g.) safe following distance), because machines are perfect won't make mistakes. After all, once we get rid of those pesky humans, shouldn't cars be able to barrel down the highway at 100mph with the following distance of stop-and-go traffic, because of the magic of internet and algorithms?
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Perhaps the truck hit something else and stopped very abruptly. You can be part of a multi-car accident; happens all the time. Regardless of fault there's the issue of programming are response, which was the point here.
- narag 3y ago
  I agree, but if I understood correctly your previous reasoning, the passengers of the robotic vehicle put themselves 'in the game', not only more than roadside bystanders, but also more than others in vehicles that are driven respecting the rules. I used to drive to work every day, very busy highway, and faced an annoying dilemma. If I kept a safe distance, the driver immediately behind me would pass me inserting himself in the gap, forcing me to brake and leaving more distance, inviting a new vehicle to pass me. Or I could tailgate and risk being part of the next multiple colision accident. After seen a couple of those, no thanks. This is the kind of human idiocy that robots were suppossed to avoid. But if they're going to mimic it, what's the point? We will be competing with them and sooner than later, we will see how big companies behind them will outmanouver us, also in courts. So not as optimistic as you about regulation.

bell-cot 3y ago

Expecting an autonomous robot to be omniscient and omnibenevolent is BS from cool-sounding Sci-Fi stories and ivory-tower philosophers. The roads are currently full of human drivers, and ~zero of their driver-training programs include anything resembling trolley problems. A reasonable programming goal and standard for autonomous robots would be: "Behave like a human of decently-above-average skill, training, and safety-consciousness".

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Yet lawyers are stratospherically known for arguing anything that will win their case. Being reasonable is not any defense, not for a computer. And, this argument doesn't address at all what to do about this well-understood traffic situation and the programming we will accept.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  > ...reasonable is not any defense, not for... ...any case where the lawyer knows there could be Deep Pockets in play. Quite true. And there is a wide gulf between "X would be a reasonable engineering and regulatory standard", and "X is the current standard". OTOH... > Example: a truck stops in front of the autodriving car, too quickly for it to stop in time. It knows this; it understands its vehicle handling to many decimal places ... a likely-fatal accident ... This is not a "well-understood traffic situation", and it may not be physically possible without a crazy assumption or few. The autodriving car has brakes, a crumple zone in front, air bags, etc. Cars generally have much shorter braking distances than trucks, and the autodriving car presumably has quick reactions. Was the autodriving car blindly approaching the truck at already-lethal (even if the truck had not stopped) speeds? Is the truck loaded with high-sensitivity explosives, that a fairly minor collision will set off?

c0pium 3y ago

> already programmers have intentionally written code to react when facing this dilemma Citation needed. > was derided on this venue for unreasonably introducing the 'trolley car' philosophical Appropriately.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
Citation? That auto-driving cars exist. That is not in doubt. They auto-brake for road obstruction; that can be observed in any number of youtube videos. Such experiments are conducted by highway safety boards; Tesla famously failed some of them. It would be more helpful to post comments that illuminate the issue or introduce new ideas. "You so stupid" is not one of those posts. Try to do better.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- c0pium 3y ago
  You should google the word “intentionally”, you’re using it incorrectly. The unfounded assumption that I was challenging was the existence of trolley problem solvers being deliberately written. Nobody is doing that.
  - JoeAltmaier 3y ago
    See, there was a comment that had value! Thank you.
    - c0pium 3y ago
      Oh the irony.

dist-epoch 3y ago

> See, the people on the road have voluntarily put themselves 'in the game'. Kids playing by the side of the road are not part of this; Are people (and kids) crossing the street at a marking "in the game"?