
Should your driverless car kill you to save a child? - chton
http://qz.com/245142/should-your-driverless-car-kill-you-to-save-a-child/
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dm2
This scenario should never be possible.

An autonomous vehicle should never be traveling fast enough to not be able to
stop for any objects that could potentially jump out in front of it.

If there is a blind spot, slow the vehicle down. If there is a crosswalk, slow
down.

What about animals though? I often see squirrels, geese, and deer in the
middle of the road. Does the vehicle honk the horn and inch forward? Geese are
dumb and will stand in the middle of the road until you scare them or they
decide they want to cross, squirrels will actually challenge the vehicle many
times.

Someone will die from an autonomous vehicle eventually, there's no way to
prevent that just because of the odds of some fluke happening. If someone
trips or purposely jumps in front of an autonomous vehicle then there is
nothing that could have been done, don't kill the driver for the pedestrians
mistake.

~~~
krapp
Autonomous cars should obviously be programmed to obey all traffic laws.
However, since human drivers don't, this in and of itself may create the
impression for passengers that autonomous cars are inexorably slow. If one
assumes that even a human driver obeying the traffic laws and speed limits is
still too unsafe, having them move even slower than _that_ may be intolerable.

Because they're considered more safe and more efficient, autonomous traffic
may be designed to move even faster than is legal for humans (they would be
subject to their own distinct traffic laws.) This may be especially likely for
automated trucks, which will be expected to deliver their cargo as fast as
possible, as often as necessary.

~~~
dm2
I agree with everything you said, as long as the vehicle has a clear line of
sight of the road ahead and there is enough room to drive off of the road if
something unexpected happens.

In the situation mentioned there is a blindspot where a child could be (for
whatever reason) and a wall on the other side of the road. The vehicle was
traveling fast enough so that it could not stop or avoid the child and if it
crashed into the wall it would kill the passengers, in my opinion this vehicle
in this situation was traveling too fast.

How about this scenario, say you purchase an autonomous supercar that can
travel at 150+ MPH down the highway and a deer approaches the road, the
vehicle should slow down to a point where it can safely avoid the deer no
matter what random action it takes, correct? If the deer hits the car,
everybody loses so it is in everyone's best interest to avoid that situation
even if it means that person gets to work a few seconds later every day
because there are always deer at a certain place on the highway.

This is especially true in cities, yes, autonomous cars could probably
"safely" travel at 100+ MPH but if something unexpected happens it would not
be acceptable to hit several pedestrians due to the unknown happening, like
someone or an animal running out into the street.

------
lotsofmangos
_" When robot cars must kill, there are good reasons why designers should not
be the ones picking victims."_

There are also good reasons for them to be picking victims, in the case
presented, switching control to the driver may increase the chance of both the
child and the driver dying. The designers of roads made the decision anyway,
roads for motor vehicles could all have big sidewalls and be up on stilts and
never be a threat to pedestrians or wildlife, if we wanted them to. It would
be very expensive to do this, so we accept the deaths.

