re: Self-driving cars: ethics and economic concerns

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B) If option A fails, then there is still no dilemma, it takes out the irresponsible kid in the road as opposed to the family of four that did nothing wrong. This isn't even a tough one to comprehend on any level.

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There's no dilemma from a purely objective, rational standpoint. The question is, what % of parents are willing to say, yes, please sacrifice my kid instead of the other 4 people? I'd guess the real answer is close to 0.

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Many many hotels will close as well.

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Mainly interstate chains serving travelers and truck stops. Obviously trucks will still need fuel, but the extravagant truck stops with motels, etc., will not be needed. They will be more automated fueling stations.

This is probably already been mentioned, but there will drastic changes in insurance, also local governments will lose millions they currently get on traffic and parking tickets.

DWI cases will dwindle hurting attorneys.

The domino affect will be drastic.

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There's still no dilemma, because it's not their choice to make.

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Not sure what you mean.

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The parents of the kid running out into the road don't get to choose whether the driver of the car (computer or human) runs their kid over or swerves off the cliff.

Obviously if it's my kid, I'd much rather the car full of strangers die, but... not really my call.

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I think you're focused too much on one hypothetical. Boiled down, the question is merely: will a potential autonomous vehicle owner be willing to own an autonomous vehicle which does not necessarily prioritize the life of the vehicle owner (or its occupants)? There's an infinite number of illustrative iterations we could come up with to bring the question to life, but they are individually irrelevant. How the cars will be programmed will be SOMEONE'S call.

Well it was presented as a hypothetical, but in reality it was a simple logic question with a simple answer. As most illustrative iterations would be.

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Boiled down, the question is merely: will a potential autonomous vehicle owner be willing to own an autonomous vehicle which does not necessarily prioritize the life of the vehicle owner (or its occupants)?

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It will still be far safer than driving is now with far less statistical chance of dying... so... yes. People still fly, take trains, ride the bus, travel in numbers of ways where they have virtually no control over their own safety.

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They might accidentally drive off a cliff trying to not hit the bus to avoid killing themselves, but most accidents happen so fast it's your survival instinct doing the acting, not your higher brain functions pondering moral dilemmas.

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This.

I would expect a couple of things in a majority SDC world:

1) An instance like this is usually a combination of speeding or bad positioning, bad transportation alignment, etc. I would think a Self-Driving Car will have better awareness of potentially problematic areas, potential crash information, and a plethora of other data points that will make this situation uncommon. It will also obey the speed limits.

2) I'd be ok with the default to be "Preservation of Vehicle life," because well that's how we would generally react. I mean, the question isn't "Hit the kid or drive off the cliff," unless you're talking about a slice of road with a wall directly on one side and a cliff on the other. The car could attempt to avoid both, again a natural reaction, and if it misses one way or the other (killing occupants or the kid) you really can't blame anyone. There could be a ditch, a fence, etc.

In any situation where it's literally kid or cliff....well...that kid is probably in a place he shouldn't be...

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2) I'd be ok with the default to be "Preservation of Vehicle life,"

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I think rule #1 would be to keep it on the road (shoulders being considered part of the roadway) and #2 should be preservation of occupants.

If a kid bolts out onto the road and there is room, swerve onto the shoulder (or the oncoming lane, because the car would know if it's clear or not). If a kid bolts out onto the road and there is no where safe for the car to go, sorry kid.

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2) I'd be ok with the default to be "Preservation of Vehicle life," because well that's how we would generally react. I mean, the question isn't "Hit the kid or drive off the cliff," unless you're talking about a slice of road with a wall directly on one side and a cliff on the other. The car could attempt to avoid both, again a natural reaction, and if it misses one way or the other (killing occupants or the kid) you really can't blame anyone. There could be a ditch, a fence, etc.

In any situation where it's literally kid or cliff....well...that kid is probably in a place he shouldn't be...

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Again, too much focus on one specific example. The question is merely what will the programming decision that MUST BE MADE be (and who will make it) regarding the prioritization of lives to be saved. The working assumption is that the vast majority of current human drivers opt to preserve themselves and/or their passengers as opposed to making the purely utilitarian decision to save the greatest number of total lives. With that in mind, it's far from clear how future society will "vote" for the programming choice.

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Really? Really? If said person wants to murder the person in the car, there are already 1000000 ways to do it

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Nah man, the only way to do it is to wait until there's a situation where a person is driving along a cliff, then BAM, run out onto the road!!!

It's definitely an issue that may hold back autonomous cars for years, if not decades, the ole murder by running in front of the car to make him go off of a cliff move.

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It's very possible to imagine Uber going to 0, though.

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Huh? They are a leader in self driving cars. Their whole game plan is to use people to be uber drivers until they can go full autonomous.