Drivers Prefer Autonomous Cars That Don't Kill Them (hothardware.com)

"A new study shows that most people prefer that self-driving cars be programmed to save the most people in the event of an accident, even if it kills the driver," reports Information Week. "Unless they are the drivers." Slashdot reader MojoKid quotes an article from Hot Hardware about the new study, which was published by Science magazine. So if there is just one passenger aboard a car, and the lives of 10 pedestrians are at stake, the survey participants were perfectly fine with a self-driving car "killing" its passenger to save many more lives in return. But on the flip side, these same participants said that if they were shopping for a car to purchase or were a passenger, they would prefer to be within a vehicle that would protect their lives by any means necessary. Participants also balked at the notion of the government stepping in to regulate the "morality brain" of self-driving cars.
The article warns about a future where "a harsh AI reality may whittle the worth of our very existence down to simple, unemotional percentages in a computer's brain." MIT's Media Lab is now letting users judge for themselves, in a free online game called "Moral Machine" simulating the difficult decisions that might someday have to be made by an autonomous self-driving car.

Comments

Re:News at 5...

[PopeRatzo]

Sigh... this issue is so bloody simple to resolve.

1. Default to a default set of morals, which include a reasonable (but not excessive) degree of self-sacrifice - based around the sort of decisions a "typical" driver would make.

That sounds anything but simple.

Re:News at 5...

[Firethorn]

Come back to me when you have *realistic* scenarios.

Indeed. One of the things that was covered in my motorcycle safety class was the concept of 'traction management'.

To keep it simple, depending on the type and condition of the road and your tires, you only have so much traction. It takes traction capability to do anything - speed up, slow down, or turn. It was part of them teaching us that you are not to brake in a turn on a motorcycle. Cars can get away with that, bikes(pushed to limit) can't. You brake, then turn. If you need to stop during a turn, you straighten and brake.

Anyways, to get back to the point - it takes traction to turn. For motorcycles and cars, they covered that it's better to brake than to dodge for any substantial obstacle - if you have the luxury of dodging it, you could have braked to stop hitting it.

So, in the situations mentioned, they're stuck using trains, which have stopping distances that no car maker would be allowed to release a vehicle with. Short of the langoliers being behind you eating everything, braking is pretty much the universal solution.