Should your car kill you to save others?

[boomerang]

A pedestrian steps out in front of your autonomous car. Should the pedestrian be saved or should the car endanger your life to save the pedestrian?

The Self-Driving Dilemma: Should Your Car Kill You To Save Others?

In a split-second, the car has to make a choice with moral—and mortal—consequences. Three pedestrians have just blindly stumbled into an oncoming crosswalk. With no time to slow down, your autonomous car will either hit the pedestrians or swerve off the road, probably crashing and endangering your life. Who should be saved?

Maybe a menu option you can select depending on your mood that day before you start the car? :twisted:

 

[sdifox]

Not even a moral question. Get in front of a multi tonne projectile, get mowed down.

 

[lxskllr]

Not even a moral question. Get in front of a multi tonne projectile, getll mowed down.

This. It's a robot's first duty to serve its master. Other people not doing their jobs correctly doesn't affect that.

 

[shabby]

No ones going to buy a car that is going to kill the owner in an accident, what are these stupid authors of these articles thinking?

 

[slugg]

Not even a moral question. Get in front of a multi tonne projectile, get mowed down.

This. And this is precisely the reason why I feel that basing a car's safety rating by how gracefully it hits pedestrians is absurd. Yet most countries do this; in order to get a 5 star safety rating, the car has to be able to mow down pedestrians without killing them. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Not even a moral question. Get in front of a multi tonne projectile, get mowed down.

Personally I'd pay extra for a car that could autonomously deploy wheel scythes like chariots had to be sure of killing as many of those asshole pedestrians as possible.

 

[JSt0rm]

I'm trying to imagine a situation where you would be going so fast to kill yourself. Maybe if someone walked onto the highway? On a surface street moving at 35mph shouldn't kill you.

 

[DigDog]

the three laws of robotics are to be interpreted in order. so, no.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I can see that being a delima, but I'd say the primary focus should be saving the user of the robot, in this case the driver and passengers. Either way, you're going to get stupid lawsuits because of it. "if they had coded it differently it would not have killed him!". I imagine makers of self driving cars are going to need huge legal departments as blame that would normally go to drivers will now be shifted to the company.

 

[Jumpem]

Well, to start, pedestrians have to stop being given the right of way. That encourages them to walk into traffic.

 

[Jaskalas]

This. It's a robot's first duty to serve its master. Other people not doing their jobs correctly doesn't affect that.

The master is its maker...its insurer... its licenser... your government.
The decision will be made for you.

 

[lxskllr]

The master is its maker...its insurer... its licenser... your government.
The decision will be made for you.

You might be right judging by cell phones and the foolish masses that don't see any reason to have root. The robot should obey the root user, and that user should be the one that operates the robot. Another case for libre software.

 

[madoka]

I was driving in Palm Springs last year at night on a road with no overhead lights, when a homeless black guy in black clothes decided to jaywalk across five lanes of cars going 60 MPH. I barely saw him as I drove past him. No way that guy should get preference over sane people.

 

[Slacker]

This is a ridiculous example there's no situation where car will be traveling at speed that it would be unable to stop when there are pedestrians present.

Also, there is no panic maneuver in the programming.

 

[SparkyJJO]

At most, slam the brakes on to reduce impact as much as possible. Anything else is more likely to hurt more people (1 person vs potentially multiple passengers, or maybe swerving takes out another car in the road, etc).

 

[luv2liv]

The car will be smart enough to identify people's IQ just by looks (don't even try to deny what I am talking about). Then SkyNet only keeps the dumb ones alive to prevent a revolution.

 

[Chiropteran]

I'm going to figure out how to hack my robot car so it always thinks there are 9999 people in my back seat, giving myself priority to live in all accident situations with other robot-driven vehicles.

 

[boomerang]

The master is its maker...its insurer... its licenser... your government.
The decision will be made for you.

Exactly. Should you survive, you'll then know the decision.

 

[boomerang]

This is a ridiculous example there's no situation where car will be traveling at speed that it would be unable to stop when there are pedestrians present.

Except in the example in the post above yours. Oh, and the countless others.

 

[sdifox]

No ones going to buy a car that is going to kill the owner in an accident, what are these stupid authors of these articles thinking?

I would actually prefer not to have to own a vehicle. Central service makes the most sense. Just order one when you need one.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

I'm just waiting for teleportation

 

[Red Squirrel]

The master is its maker...its insurer... its licenser... your government.
The decision will be made for you.

That's my fear with self driving cars, they'll probably become like cell phones where they're tied to the cloud and crap. Hopefully there will be an open source movement for that to ensure the user has full control. In reality I think it will be super proprietary and they'll probably do like John Deere where you're not allowed to modify it.

 

[Imp]

I'm just waiting for teleportation

Screw that, wormhole technology... Stargates on every continent.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm trying to imagine a situation where you would be going so fast to kill yourself. Maybe if someone walked onto the highway? On a surface street moving at 35mph shouldn't kill you.

Not really having to be going that fast. If the car has a choice between hitting, say, a pedestrian, another car in an oncoming lane, or driving up onto the sidewalk and hitting a bunch of pedestrians, what should the car do?

Even at low speed, driving into oncoming traffic is more likely to injure you (the 'driver') but less likely to result in a fatality. But there's also a chance that you hit just wrong and it does kill you. Maybe you're a hemophiliac. Maybe the airbag going off gives you a heart attack. Maybe you're hit by flying debris from the other car. Maybe you were drinking coffee and the airbag drives the steel mug into your head. In any event, driving into things is potentially dangerous.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

The car will be smart enough to identify people's IQ just by looks (don't even try to deny what I am talking about). Then SkyNet only keeps the dumb ones alive to prevent a revolution.

Yes, I also read smbc.