"Ryan Calo, an expert on robotics law at the University of Washington, is skeptical that it’s possible to translate the so-far theoretical ethical discussions into practical rules or system designs. He doesn’t think autonomous cars are sophisticated enough to understand the different factors a human would in a real-life situation.
Calo believes the real quandary is whether we are willing to deploy vehicles that will prevent many accidents but also make occasional deadly blunders that no human would. “If it encounters a shopping cart and a stroller at the same time, it won’t be able to make a moral decision that groceries are less important than people,” says Calo. “But what if it’s saving tens of thousands of lives overall because it’s safer than people?”
Patrick Lin, a philosophy professor at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, who has studied ethics and autonomous driving with the nonprofit arm of Daimler-Benz, says the idea of cars making ethical deliberations should not be so quickly dismissed. Progress in sensors, artificial intelligence, and facial recognition software will likely lead to cars capable of deciding to save one life and sacrifice another, he says.
“It’s better if we proactively try to anticipate and manage the problem before we actually get there,” Lin says. “This is the kind of thing that’s going to make for a lawsuit that could destroy a company or leave a huge black mark on the industry.”"
- Date Published:09/02/2016
- Original Publication:MIT Technology Review