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Should the driverless car kill the kid or the retiree?
October 21, 2016 - 6:11pm
!!!
We should probably go with whichever a human driver would hit.
It should kill the driver, non?
The passenger, technically.
But as fascinating as the need to make these moral and ethical choices is, it's not as fascinating as the idea that we've only had to make them in the context of fancy new self-driving cars. IOW, it's interesting that prior to self-driving cars, we were quite content to let the human driver decide if the kid or the retiree dies. When has any driver been convicted of choosing to hit the ethically-incorrect pedestrian?
The first thing is to get rid of as many cars as possible. Yes, I know cars will be needed for a long time in remote areas, and we can't ask everyone to use public transport in cities when it isn't universally accessible - even the disabled equivalent of "walking" isn't always accessible as not everywhere has curbs and sidewalks usable for disabled people. But as few of the damned things as possible.
People just east of where I live have been waiting for an extension of the northern blue line for almost 30 years...
Gee, I was completelly unaware that retirees and children could be part of a ethically-incorrect group. I'm a retiree, does that mean I should indentify myself in some way as ehtically correct, or is it ethically incorrect? In fact I think I'll dispense with the reflective clothes I use when I'm out walking. They make it easier to aim at me...
But we haven't really been 'content' to let human drivers decide anything. Human drivers are responsible for their actions, and can be called to account for what they've done (or not done).
The question is, in the case of a 'self-driving' car, who's responsible for what it does? The software manufacturer? the hardware manufacturer? the owner?
When hardware or software fails, which we know will happen, who will accept responsibility for that failure?
Any way to get them both? A bit of scattershot or a pipe bomb?
Since we're playing Grand Theft Auto here.
Me too. But I guess driverless cars will need to work it out.
I guess they'll also need to learn to identify "retirees".
Sounds like between killing workers and killing retirees, driverless cars are going to have to be pretty good at identifying humans by their employment status.