re: Self-driving cars: ethics and economic concerns

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This is foolish. The real answer is the car will just stop, because it's response time and control will be way beyond human capabilities. So neither dies.

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yeah, because it's not possible the events transpire outside the range of capability for the car to stop even when assuming reaction time = 0.

Also, people forget that the car does not see "potential", it only sees the actual. A human driver sees the family parked off the side of the road with little kids playing and recognizes the potential for something, and thus attention is primed, speed likely slows, and so forth. This is normal human behavior. I realize it's not evidenced 100% of the time, but it is normal behavior. It is not currently part of machine capability. It's unlikely to become part of the capability suite anytime soon.

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The odds of this being a real scenario are nearly non-existent.

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Perhaps. So it won't be programmed into the car to begin with, so then when it does happen (and it will), the outcome will be worse than it should have been.

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Perhaps. So it won't be programmed into the car to begin with, so then when it does happen (and it will), the outcome will be worse than it should have been.

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And yet this scenario will be incredibly rare compared to the all-to-common scenarios that cause traffic fatalities due to human error which will be minimized due to automation.

This whole discussion is an example of allowing perfection to be the enemy of better.

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If you're looking for a real ethical/moral dilemma, it's going to be the question of how to handle to financial and social implications of the lower classes.

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It will affect more than the lower classes. So much of a company is devoted to deal with the humans that work there, that I suspect 2/3 of a trucking company (as an example) would vanish. That's certainly going to creep up the income ladder.

On the ethics point, I think it's a non starter. We have over forty thousand vehicular deaths a year in this country. If autonomous cars cut that by even twenty percent then either way it decides your conundrum is justified a hundred times over. It's still tragic but not a reason to stop progress.

On the jobs point, most of the transportation jobs to be replaced are occupied by soon to be retires. Most truck drivers are boomers and not many younger folks are training to take their places, so we'll need those robots to fill those jobs.

And if you think that autonomy is only going to replace drivers then you need to do more research on the subject.

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Also, people forget that the car does not see "potential", it only sees the actual. A human driver sees the family parked off the side of the road with little kids playing and recognizes the potential for something, and thus attention is primed, speed likely slows, and so forth. This is normal human behavior. I realize it's not evidenced 100% of the time, but it is normal behavior. It is not currently part of machine capability. It's unlikely to become part of the capability suite anytime soon.

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This is dumb. Why can't risk aversion be programmed in?

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On the ethics point, I think it's a non starter. We have over forty thousand vehicular deaths a year in this country. If autonomous cars cut that by even twenty percent then either way it decides your conundrum is justified a hundred times over. It's still tragic but not a reason to stop progress.

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Yes, I understand pure rationality. However, I think you'll agree that John Q. Car Buyer can't be counted on to be purely rational.

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And if you think that autonomy is only going to replace drivers then you need to do more research on the subject.

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My OP explicitly contained a link listing 128 different jobs which will likely be eliminated.

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think you'll agree that John Q. Car Buyer can't be counted on to be purely rational.

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Yeah that's why we don't let John Quincy Car Buyer make decisions about air bags or speed limits. I doubt he'll have much input on this either.

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My OP explicitly contained a link listing 128 different jobs which will likely be eliminated.

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Yes but those were all focused on automated vehicles. I meant automation in general (and AI). Most of us are gonna be replaced in the next century, and some of the ones that seem safest will be the first to go. Can you imagine a doctor that shows up to an appointment on time? It will be incredible!!

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Also, speed limits are matters of law which have been highly political at times and have also gone through periods of massive non-compliance - in effect, a mild form of mass civil disobedience.

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A speed limit is a much more visible and easily understood issue than the coding of an autonomous vehicle. I guarantee very few people have an opinion about this until it's presented to them, every single driver on the planet is an expert on what speed limits should be. You're comparing two different fruits bruh.

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What will happen in the situation where a driver hacks his car to opt for saving the one family member?

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This would require a very strange combination of characteristics. A distrust of machines so much you want to change its software, and also an understanding of code well enough to do it. I doubt this will come up immediately, but I guess we'll see what happens.

Either way, the net outcome will be more lives saved by a factor of tens of thousands. So no matter what conundrum you throw out, it's still not a valid argument against (I know you're not taking that position but someone reading might).

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The job stuff is interesting just to note as a prediction, but it's the ethical stuff that I really think is an actual problem. It's almost beyond dispute that the "ethical" choice between killing the driver or, say, 20 people in a crowd he is about to plow into is simple - kill the driver. But will you really buy a car that is programmed to make that decision with you as the driver?

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I certainly get what you're saying, it's an interesting discussion.

But even knowing my car could do that, I'm choosing to buy the car 10 out of 10 times. If we're talking truly autonomous cars, the risk of me dying in a car crash will go down exponentially, so I'd be giving myself a much better chance to survive, even if my car may one day choose to not save me as the driver.