Driverless Cars And AI Ethics; Forbes, December 29, 2021

Cindy Gordon, Forbes; Driverless Cars And AI Ethics

"One of the most validated research surveys of machine ethics1, called the Moral Machine, was published in Nature, found that many of the moral principles that guide a driver’s decisions vary by country. This reinforces a regulatory set of complexities to navigate on cultural preferences. For example, in a scenario in which some combination of pedestrians and passengers will die in a collision, people from relatively prosperous countries with strong institutions were less likely to spare a pedestrian who stepped into traffic illegally. There were over 13 scenarios identified where a death could not be avoided and respondents had to make a decision on the impacts to old, rich, poor, more people or less people being killed. The research found that there are cultural variances in public preferences which governments and self-driving cars would need to take into account to gain varying jurisdictional confidence.

In other words different rules for countries would need to apply. Talk about moral and ethical complexities in design engineering. If this , then this etc."

The hype around driverless cars came crashing down in 2018; Ars Technica, December 30, 2018

Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica; The hype around driverless cars came crashing down in 2018

"In the self-driving world, there's been a lot of discussion recently about the hype cycle, a model for new technologies that was developed by the Gartner consulting firm. In this model, new technologies reach a "peak of inflated expectations" (think the Internet circa 1999) before falling into a "trough of disillusionment." It's only after these initial overreactions—first too optimistic, then too pessimistic—that public perceptions start to line up with reality."

Driverless cars raise so many ethical questions. Here are just a few of them.; San Diego Union-Tribune, March 23, 2018

Lawrence M. Hinman, San Diego Union-Tribune; Driverless cars raise so many ethical questions. Here are just a few of them.

"Even more troubling will be the algorithms themselves, even if the engineering works flawlessly. How are we going to program autonomous vehicles when they are faced with a choice among competing evils? Should they be programmed to harm or kill the smallest number of people, swerving to avoid hitting two people but unavoidably hitting one? (This is the famous “trolley problem” that has vexed philosophers and moral psychologists for over half a century.)

Should your car be programmed to avoid crashing into a group of schoolchildren, even if that means driving you off the side of a cliff? Most of us would opt for maximizing the number of lives saved, except when one of those lives belongs to us or our loved ones.

These are questions that take us to the heart of the moral life in a technological society. They are already part of a lively and nuanced discussion among philosophers, engineers, policy makers and technologists. It is a conversation to which the larger public should be invited.

The ethics of dealing with autonomous systems will be a central issue of the coming decades."