Automotive 1
Self-Driving Cars: Save the Passenger and Run Over the Pedestrian?
The looming entry of emerging technologies like self-driving cars in the automotive industry will most likely reduce road fatalities but also poses a difficult moral dilemma. If your car has to make a choice, will it hit pedestrians on the road or veer off the road and put your life in danger?
The big challenge
An autonomous driving system requires programmers to develop an algorithm to make crucial decisions and funny enough, these will be based on ethics rather than on technology. According to a study, whose findings were released and published in the journal Science last week, figuring out how to build ethical self-driven cars is one of the biggest challenge in Artificial Intelligence.
Not all crashes can be avoided
With autonomous vehicles, you can expect a reduction in air pollution plus a host of other social benefits. In fact, the study was keen to point out that adoption of these cars will eliminate up to 89% of traffic accidents witnessed today. However, not all can be avoided. For instance, the autonomous vehicle (hereby abbreviated as an AV) may avoid hitting several pedestrians by swerving and hitting a passerby or it may be faced with the tough choice of sacrificing its own passenger in order to save the lives of many.
What’s your take?
When a number of people were asked about what they thought about AVs and the ethical decisions they had to make, they (people) responded in different ways. 3 in every 4 people said it would be more ethical for the car to sacrifice its passenger rather than hit 10 pedestrians. 19% said they would buy a self-driven car if it meant that a loved one might be sacrificed for the ‘greater good’. What’s your take on this? Do you think that regulation of the automotive industry with emphasis on autonomous vehicles will be the solution?
