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Selectable Ethics For Robotic Cars and the Possibility of a Robot Car Bomb

Rick Zeman writes Wired has an interesting article on the possibility of selectable ethical choices in robotic autonomous cars. From the article: "The way this would work is one customer may set the car (which he paid for) to jealously value his life over all others; another user may prefer that the car values all lives the same and minimizes harm overall; yet another may want to minimize legal liability and costs for herself; and other settings are possible. Philosophically, this opens up an interesting debate about the oft-clashing ideas of morality vs. liability." Meanwhile, others are thinking about the potential large scale damage a robot car could do.

Lasrick writes Patrick Lin writes about a recent FBI report that warns of the use of robot cars as terrorist and criminal threats, calling the use of weaponized robot cars "game changing." Lin explores the many ways in which robot cars could be exploited for nefarious purposes, including the fear that they could help terrorist organizations based in the Middle East carry out attacks on US soil. "And earlier this year, jihadists were calling for more car bombs in America. Thus, popular concerns about car bombs seem all too real." But Lin isn't too worried about these threats, and points out that there are far easier ways for terrorists to wreak havoc in the US.

8 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. Hi welcome to Jonny Cab by garlicbready · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hope you enjoyed the ride ha ha

  2. Blue Screen of Death... by bobbied · · Score: 4, Funny

    BSOD starts to take on a whole new meaning..

    As does, crash dump, interrupt trigger, dirty block and System Panic...

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
    1. Re:Blue Screen of Death... by jpvlsmv · · Score: 4, Funny
      You're right, officer, Clippy should not have been driving.

      Now, what to do when my Explorer crashes...

      Click on the Start button, go to "All Programs", then go to "Brakes", right-click on the "Apply Brakes" button, and choose "Run as Administrator". After the 15-second splash screen (now with Ads by Bing), choose "Decelerate Safely".

  3. Philosophy Settings by timrod · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, cannot wait for the day when I can set my car's logic system to different ethical settings, sorted by philosopher. For instance, you can set your car to "Jeremy Bentham", which will automatically choose whoever looks less useful to ram into when in a crash situation. You could also set it to "Plato", which will cause the car to ram into whoever appears less educated (just hope it doesn't happen to be you).

    Just make sure you don't set the car to "Nietzsche".

    1. Re:Philosophy Settings by Rob+Riggs · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm looking forward to the Ayn Rand setting. "Me first!!"

      --
      the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
  4. Re:Fuck people! by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

    Judging from Monday morning traffic in my town, a lot of people already set their cars to that setting.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Fuck people! by GameboyRMH · · Score: 3, Funny

    First you'd need to root the car and run "echo 1 > /dev/morality/evil"

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  6. Re:Fuck people! by JWSmythe · · Score: 3, Funny


    echo "chaotic_evil" > /proc/morality

    That's why it hasn't been working for you.

    There's also a kernel patch on evil.org to change the default setting. With the standard kernel, it is set to "lawful_neutral". In that mode, it will honk and swerve for a little old lady crossing the street.

    lawful_good would stop, and offer her a ride.

    chaotic_evil will run her over, back up and do it again, and the lower loot collection hook will deploy to take her purse.

    --
    Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.