Posted on 06/24/2016 8:20:32 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Self-driving cars have a lot of learning to do...
And, if the situation arises, they’ll need to know whether it’s better to mow down a group of pedestrians or spare their lives by steering off the road, killing all passengers onboard.
... Once self-driving cars are logging serious miles, they’re sure to find themselves in situations where an accident is unavoidable. At that point, they’ll have to know how to pick the lesser of two evils.
The answer could determine whether self-driving cars become a novelty item for the adventurous few or gain widespread acceptance among the general public.
...
The easiest question was whether a self-driving car with a single passenger should crash itself into a wall to avoid hitting a group of 10 pedestrians. About three-quarters of respondents agreed that sacrificing one life to save many more was the moral thing to do.
After that, things started to get tricky. The fewer pedestrians there were to save, the weaker the consensus that the car should sacrifice its passenger. If crashing into a wall would save just one pedestrian, only 23% of those surveyed thought that’s what the car should do.
When the researchers asked people to imagine that they were riding in the car with their child or another relative, their willingness to swerve away from innocent pedestrians faltered. Still, between 54% and 66% of survey takers agreed that the car should do what it must to save as many lives as possible.
This pattern of responses revealed people’s strong underlying preference for a “utilitarian” set of rules designed to maximize lives saved and minimize deaths — with one big exception.
“People want to live in a world in which driverless cars minimize casualties, but they want their own car to protect them at all costs,” Rahwan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Killing another to save yourself is murder people.
Applied needed correction...
the infowarrior
Yeah, it’s like this. I learned something long ago that has always served me well and gets me through times like this...... “better you than me”.
Ill light a candle for you somewhere.
Actually, GOOGLE and the White Mosque will decide
who the cars will kill.
On the “green” light.
I thought I heard that self driving cars were able to avoid problems in the first place, that they were able to brake and stop and avoid collisions. Sounds like they still have some issues to work on.
Can we train self-driving cars to kill LAT and NYT reporters?
The solution is obvious: Never exceed 5 miles per hour.
I’m coming to the end of my “driving career” at nearly 70.
With the self-driving cars and cellphonemania; I’m just
as glad. The last rollover Fang had liked to have killed
us both.
Top Gear made this point about 5 years ago.
People “chip” their car’s ECU today for greater performance. Maybe down the road they’ll chip their car to alter this type of logic. haha
What if its a shuffling gibmedat standing there “owning” the road?
If you have a flat tire in the ghetto, does your self driving car know to keep driving till your out of the ghetto?
What about the people inside the building that will now collapse on them and kill them because your car decided to hit that wall?
These type of situations almost never occur, and are almost never as clear cut as portrayed.
It is highly unlikely that any software would be sufficient to understand a situation such as this to make such a decision.
How is the car to differentiate between a heard of deer in front of it and a crowd of people, for example.
The article assumes so much that simply is untrue, or unlikely to ever be true.
You’re
Stupid Google voice
A bit of an argument ad absurdum, but it’s occurred to me that in a driverless car world, your car would never exceed the speed limit. It would take forever to get from point A to point B going 30 mph, for example.
No matter what you say it is unwise to have three tons of steel hurtling down the highway with other vehicles, trucks, buses, and semis all together. You have to have more confidence in car makers and software programmeers than I do. It will only take one event to kill hundreds at rush hour. No way, Jose.
If the legal liability goes to the car maker, they will gladly sacrifice you to prevent two or more other sacrifices.
If it goes to you, the car rider (with a choice of punching in the policy) then you can make the car do what you want, but you will have to answer for it.
The reluctance to sacrifice is foreign to true Christianity, for whatever that observation is worth. It was also the reason why the Orlando shootings had to take out 50 people instead of a handful or at least much less.
You can brag that you stand up for number one only so long, until you meet “number zero.”
“The easiest question was whether a self-driving car with a single passenger should crash itself into a wall to avoid hitting a group of 10 pedestrians.”
Are the ‘pedestrians’ holding ball bats, tire irons, machetes, concrete blocks, bicycle chains, etc.?
Then clearly the next step is walkerless legs for pedestrians. Cuts down on the ability for anti-progressive political dissent, too. :)
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