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There was recently a car crash here in Victoria, Australia, that resulted in the deaths of two teenagers and injuries to five others. It was apparently caused b

by jbarham 12y ago

There was recently a car crash here in Victoria, Australia, that resulted in the deaths of two teenagers and injuries to five others. It was apparently caused by the relatively inexperienced driver swerving to avoid a rabbit. In hindsight it would have been better if the driver hadn't swerved and the rabbit had been run over, but in some sense this is a moral choice of the type that robots can't make. In theory self driving cars sound like they could be potentially safer than human drivers, but there are many edge cases like the one above where a robotic driver following reasonable heuristics (e.g., swerve to avoid animals on the road) could cause fatal accidents that most human drivers would be able to avoid.

afterburner 12y ago
I think this is a poor example. You could just as easily program the robot not to try so hard to avoid hitting a small animal (or at all). It's not a moral choice, it's a decision based on size and shape. Also, a robot might be less likely to swerve into other cars or dangerous locations. There are problems for robot cars, sure, but this doesn't sound like one of them.
- jbarham 12y ago
  > It's not a moral choice, it's a decision based on size and shape. A baby crawling on the road is the same size and shape (roughly) as, say, a dog. In that situation the choice is a moral one, whether the robot knows it or not. This is not a hypothetical scenario: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279639/Bus-driver-comes-screeching-halt-inches-baby-sitting-busy-road.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279639/Bus-driver-c...
robotresearcher 12y ago
> this is a moral choice of the type that robots can't make. The driver in Victoria did not make a moral choice. Did they really weigh the life of the rabbit against death and injury of seven people? Extremely unlikely. A robot, like an experienced driver, could easily use the heuristic that hitting the small thing is safer than hitting the big thing.
- kamaal 12y ago
  >>Did they really weigh the life of the rabbit against death and injury of seven people? I would say yes. Firstly I would see what the driver actually did. Did the driver have the seven people in plain sight when he/she made that decision? But for sure the driver did make a moral decision to save the Rabbit's life. It would have even been the case where the person thought he could save the rabbit's life without harming the humans. So you have to make decisions which are purely not mathematical here. >>could easily use the heuristic that hitting the small thing is safer than hitting the big thing. How would this hold against hitting some one below average height versus hitting some one tall. Or running over a baby Vs an aged person. Right there are all kinds of moral dilemma.
- jbarham 12y ago
  I'm not blaming the driver for making an immoral decision but I am saying that many more experienced drivers would not have swerved. For example, when driving in Africa where stray dogs are common, my father had a pre-determined policy not to swerve to avoid them given that it increased the probability of an accident involving human injury. As I say in a separate comment that "small thing" may be human baby or toddler on the road.

by jbarham 12y ago

afterburner 12y ago

I think this is a poor example. You could just as easily program the robot not to try so hard to avoid hitting a small animal (or at all). It's not a moral choice, it's a decision based on size and shape. Also, a robot might be less likely to swerve into other cars or dangerous locations. There are problems for robot cars, sure, but this doesn't sound like one of them.

jbarham 12y ago
> It's not a moral choice, it's a decision based on size and shape. A baby crawling on the road is the same size and shape (roughly) as, say, a dog. In that situation the choice is a moral one, whether the robot knows it or not. This is not a hypothetical scenario: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279639/Bus-driver-comes-screeching-halt-inches-baby-sitting-busy-road.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1279639/Bus-driver-c...

robotresearcher 12y ago

> this is a moral choice of the type that robots can't make. The driver in Victoria did not make a moral choice. Did they really weigh the life of the rabbit against death and injury of seven people? Extremely unlikely. A robot, like an experienced driver, could easily use the heuristic that hitting the small thing is safer than hitting the big thing.

kamaal 12y ago
>>Did they really weigh the life of the rabbit against death and injury of seven people? I would say yes. Firstly I would see what the driver actually did. Did the driver have the seven people in plain sight when he/she made that decision? But for sure the driver did make a moral decision to save the Rabbit's life. It would have even been the case where the person thought he could save the rabbit's life without harming the humans. So you have to make decisions which are purely not mathematical here. >>could easily use the heuristic that hitting the small thing is safer than hitting the big thing. How would this hold against hitting some one below average height versus hitting some one tall. Or running over a baby Vs an aged person. Right there are all kinds of moral dilemma.
jbarham 12y ago
I'm not blaming the driver for making an immoral decision but I am saying that many more experienced drivers would not have swerved. For example, when driving in Africa where stray dogs are common, my father had a pre-determined policy not to swerve to avoid them given that it increased the probability of an accident involving human injury. As I say in a separate comment that "small thing" may be human baby or toddler on the road.