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The Moral Dilemma of Driverless Cars: Save The Driver or Save The Crowd?
HughPickens.com writes: What should a driverless car with one rider do if it is faced with the choice of swerving off the road into a tree or hitting a crowd of 10 pedestrians? The answer depends on whether you are the rider in the car or someone else is, writes Peter Dizikes at MIT News. According to recent research most people prefer autonomous vehicles to minimize casualties in situations of extreme danger -- except for the vehicles they would be riding in. "Most people want to live in in a world where cars will minimize casualties," says Iyad Rahwan. "But everybody wants their own car to protect them at all costs." The result is what the researchers call a "social dilemma," in which people could end up making conditions less safe for everyone by acting in their own self-interest. "If everybody does that, then we would end up in a tragedy whereby the cars will not minimize casualties," says Rahwan. Researchers conducted six surveys, using the online Mechanical Turk public-opinion tool, between June 2015 and November 2015. The results consistently showed that people will take a utilitarian approach to the ethics of autonomous vehicles, one emphasizing the sheer number of lives that could be saved. For instance, 76 percent of respondents believe it is more moral for an autonomous vehicle, should such a circumstance arise, to sacrifice one passenger rather than 10 pedestrians. But the surveys also revealed a lack of enthusiasm for buying or using a driverless car programmed to avoid pedestrians at the expense of its own passengers. "This is a challenge that should be on the mind of carmakers and regulators alike," the researchers write. "For the time being, there seems to be no easy way to design algorithms that would reconcile moral values and personal self-interest."
I thought there was a way to objectively decide morals: write rules ahead of time. If the car is driving in a perfectly legal manner down its lane in the road, and the 10 people in the road are jaywalking, then the car/driver is in the right of way and should proceed rather than kill its driver. Maybe try to slow down and not hit them so hard, but the car ought not sacrifice its driver for the mistakes of others. You get my point: if you don't want to get run over, then don't jaywalk. Conversely if the vehicle is driving on the sidewalk, and 10 pedestrians are standing on the sidewalk, then the autonomous vehicle ought to swerve into that tree to preserve the pedestrians because you're not supposed to drive on the sidewalk.
... and laugh and run off as the driver's car kills the driver.
My point is still valid though. False dichotomy. The car should (and pretty much every driver-less car will) use maximum braking power to reduce speed as much as possible. In almost all cases it will do this long before becomes too late to stop without hitting anyone. This gives pedestrians the most time to get out of the way and if it hits them it does so at the lowest possible speed.
Further, when swerving you run the risk of a pedestrian diving out of the way, in the SAME direction that the car swerves.
Typically such "oh no I must choose which object hit" scenarios occur when the car is driving recklessly or the driver is inattentive, neither of which should apply to non-hacked self-driving cars.
It already is. Saw a talk by a Google scientist on the car project. He said in 95% of incidents the cameras clearly show the other driver is looking at their cell phone.
Expound on the morality of the issue all you want. The final decision as to whether the outcome was predetermined or premeditated will belong to the jury.
The real question I want the answer to is who will be on trial? Even then, until there is a sufficient body of judicial precedent I refuse to own, operate or allow to be carted away to my funeral in one.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I did not say that I can carefully consider all the outcomes before deciding whether to hit a tree or a man. The time is usually too short to consider anything, other than trying to stop and maybe turning the car in a direction away from any object (maybe unsuccessfully).
However, computers do what they are told and AI most likely does have time to consider this. Which means that this is now a problem - I do not want the AI in my car (or a taxi driver) to carefully consider the outcomes and decide to kill me instead of a pedestrian. Since it is most likely impossible for the taxi driver to carefully consider all options, I accept that the outcome is gong to be random (he may be too slow to react and hit the object in front whether it's a tree or a man, he may try to avoid the man in front only to hit a tree he didn't notice or he might try to avoid hitting the tree only to hit the man).
Not so when such situations are considered well in advance (when programming the AI) - in that case I will not want to ride in a car that is driven by AI that will predictably choose to hit a tree instead of a man.
For the purposes of the example, assume that the speed is high enough that hitting a tree will kill or permanently disable the people in the car, while hitting the man will kill the man, but leave the passengers better off (without permanent disability).
In addition to that, when I am driving, I am in control and responsible for my decisions (whether they are thought out or I was just too slow to react). Not so, when the AI is in control.
The situation won't actually happen in real life... take NYC for example. Speed limit is 25mph just about everywhere---self driving cars *will* actually drive 25mph. At that speed, unless the pedestrian jumped right in front out of nowhere, the car can stop on a dot.
Now imagine the pedestrian really did jump right out of "nowhere"; is that the fault of the car? And yes, 25mph hit would hurt, but with telemetry of the incident, it's gonna pretty easy to prove that the pedestrian was suicidal.
Now the supposed situation in the story, you're going on a highway at a respectable 65mph, and a group by teenagers hops right out from say behind a tunnel post or something---considering stopping distance, car has to either change lanes or hit them (all at the same time trying to reduce speed). So lets assume they hop out say 20 feet ahead of the car, and lets say there's no place to change lanes safely (edge of a cliff)... I'd say the car *should* hit them (at reduced speed as much as it can) instead of say sending the drive off the cliff at 20mph (reduced from 65 after breaking).
There's safe behavior expectations on the road... and if you're the kind of asshole that jumps in front of moving cars without regard for safety, then perhaps you should get the Darwin award :-)
I salute your honesty, but in a situation where the outcomes are known in advance, you'd prefer breaking somebody else's leg to a total loss on the car?
Even if the leg heals up fully, the pain could be tremendous. The inconvenience massive -- perhaps the victim lives on the 3rd floor? How about work -- lots of people require mobility for their job (think: waitress). Oh, yeah, and the financial cost to repair the leg could easily outpace the cost of replacing the car.
You'd rather break someone else's bones than total a car where everyone escapes injury free? That's messed up.
Support a few technologists in Washington.