Can Self-Driving Cars Be Engineered to Be Ethical?; Voice of America, March 21, 2018

Bryan Lynn reported this story for VOA Learning English. Additional information came from Reuters and the Associated Press. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor., Voice of America; Can Self-Driving Cars Be Engineered to Be Ethical?

"Nicholas Evans is a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, Massachusetts...

Evans is receiving money from the National Science Foundation to study the ethics of decision-making algorithms in autonomous vehicles. He says self-driving cars need to be programmed to react to many difficult situations. But, he adds, even simple driving activities – such as having vehicles enter a busy street – can be dangerous...

One of the most basic questions is how to decide the value of human lives. Evans says most people do not like to think about this question. But, he says, it is highly important in developing self-driving technology...

“So this is one of the really tricky questions behind autonomous vehicles – is how do you value different people's lives and how do you program a car to value different people's lives.”"