
Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill - cardamomo
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/
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POleszkiewicz
First of all, people in front of the car do not appear out of nowhere, and a
machine driving a car has much easier job to calculate different possibilities
than a human. After all it all comes down to speed / mass /energy / momentum,
and these are relatively simple calculations. That being said, I guess, that
the autonomous car ethics should be configurable to some extent (and existing
research shows, that people exhibit much more altruism in this case than one
could expect). Also, the autonomous car ethics should protect the occupants
from suicidal / homicidal people that could cause harm to the occupant by
getting into the path of the car intentionally. One case could be a homicidal
person driving manually with a bunch of kids in a car, knowing that autonomous
vehicles would prefer self destruction over a head on collision.

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colanderman
Right. Intent/culpability definitely plays into ethical decisions. Two
pedestrians crossing legally at a crosswalk? Occupant. Two pedestrians
willingly sitting in a barren stretch of road for no good reason? Pedestrians.
Just as I should not be allowed to take others' lives simply because I
selfishly value my own, others should not be allowed to take my life simply
because they are stupid.

Unfortunately such decisions are _very_ hard to make and depend on so many
variables. In today's world, it can take years in a courtroom to determine who
was in the right in such a scenario. Very curious to see how this plays out in
the upcoming decades...

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POleszkiewicz
I would rather say "decade" instead of "decades", while self driving cars are
arriving, I would argue that "self flying cars" are just around the corner,
and will make many of these dillemas irrelevant. It is much easier to avoid
any kind of collision in 3D space, also removing any kinds of traffic jams
etc.

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readme
I could see this concept making it into taxis. I don't see it ever making it
into personal vehicles.

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POleszkiewicz
I can see both, but... The self driving taxi will kill automotive market as it
is now. If you could use an auto-taxi for $.20 a mile and get it in 20
seconds... why would you need to own a car? And for longer trips? Most people
would need something with more range / performance probably for 3-5% of the
time, so instead of buying a Ford Mondeo etc. they could take a car from a
motorpool, paying for usage, and they could take a Porshe or a Jag... still
paying less.

