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posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 31 2016, @06:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the explosions-killing-everybody-isn't-a-choice dept.

Researchers at MIT have put together a pictorial survey http://moralmachine.mit.edu/ -- if the self-driving car loses its brakes, should it go straight or turn? Various scenarios are presented with either occupants or pedestrians dying, and there are a variety of peds in the road from strollers to thieves, even pets.

This AC found that I quickly began to develop my own simplistic criteria and the decisions got easier the further I went in the survey.

While the survey is very much idealized, it may have just enough complexity to give some useful results?


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Monday October 31 2016, @06:43PM

    by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday October 31 2016, @06:43PM (#420972)

    This is pointless pontification, because essentially all of these scenarios assume omnipotence. From the standpoint of a control system, the car is never going to be sure it's a pedestrian vs. a deer, or that the sidewalk curb isn't just a fence. Our real-time video/radar systems are just now getting good enough to keep the car on the road and recognize things like overpasses, road signs, and other vehicles.

    Thus, the only acceptable answer is that the vehicle acts in self-preservation. And every acceptable system will act as such. Because otherwise, you're allowing the very real possibility that a deer crossing the road or an object that fell off a truck could result in your car thinking it's a person and killing you. For no reason.

    Would you buy that car? I wouldn't. So there's really no discussion. Every self-driving vehicle will act to preserve itself and its own inhabitants.

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @06:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @06:53PM (#420977)

    Thus, the only acceptable answer is that the vehicle acts in self-preservation.

    I for one welcome our self-driving Terminators that preemptively kill all humans to stop them from jaywalking.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by physicsmajor on Monday October 31 2016, @07:19PM

      by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday October 31 2016, @07:19PM (#420999)

      That isn't the necessary conclusion.

      Have you read the article? Because most of these are convoluted scenarios where multiple things happen, and fixing it would involve jeopardizing someone or something else. The good news is that these systems react much better and faster than humans even can, so you remove an entire class of crashes (rear-ends, in particular).

      Acting in self-preservation doesn't mean the goal is barreling through everything. It means that the system will never swerve off the road or otherwise endanger its occupants in order to prevent something it doesn't know is even a problem.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @12:44AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @12:44AM (#421095)

        That isn't the necessary conclusion.

        It wasn't a conclusion at all; it was a joke.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @07:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @07:15PM (#420992)

    I think you just pointed out why these systems should not be widespread, and should operate in restricted environments. No freeway use is a big one.

    Now driver assist tech that does not involve steering (except perhaps for dampening over compensations) sound fine to me.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday October 31 2016, @07:39PM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Monday October 31 2016, @07:39PM (#421017)

      Wat?

      The current systems are designed work on freeways because vehicle interactions are deliberately limited.

      Lower speed residential streets are actually the harder problem.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 31 2016, @10:58PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 31 2016, @10:58PM (#421078) Journal
      I agree with Scruffy Beard 2, you have it exactly backwards. Freeway use is the more restricted environment.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @07:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @07:39PM (#421019)

    Turns out that at least one person in vicinity of my meatspace avatar started having second thoughts about being an organ donor after she was told the corpses are artificially kept alive long enough so a donor could be found.

    Lack of information or lack of sanity are two possible causes which might cause people to act irrationally. No matter how many backdoors are in your Apple® Iphone™, people still buy them because they're a fad.

    Same with those cars.

    • (Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Monday October 31 2016, @08:09PM

      by physicsmajor (1471) on Monday October 31 2016, @08:09PM (#421031)

      To be fair, if you're eligible for organ donation you aren't going to mind being supported while a recipient is found. The criteria for brain death are incredibly strict.

      • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday November 01 2016, @02:22AM

        by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday November 01 2016, @02:22AM (#421105) Journal

        Many posting here may pre-qualify.

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:40AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:40AM (#421206)

        The criteria for brain death are incredibly strict.

        We believed the same before we found out about locked-in syndrome, even though we already had been having EEG.

        Problem with end-of-conscious-life conditions are that we don't get no witnesses to tell us what really happens.
        For all we don't know, the patches of consciousness could linger quite a long time even into the decay phase, and serenity and deliverance from suffering the death allegedly brings could be nothing but an illusion, wishful thinking and a myth. Biology owes us no comfort, survival gains nothing from easing our demise for us.

        We should not get to reliant on organ donations for healing, it is essentially hoping for others' misery.
        Further down the road it may impede our research in neurology, in trauma prevention and treatment. It is a moral imperative to find other ways, to synthesize or recreate spare organs.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @09:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @09:47PM (#421064)

    This is pointless pontification, because essentially all of these scenarios assume omnipotence. From the standpoint of a control system, the car is never going to be sure it's a pedestrian vs. a deer...

    I believe you are missing the point. The car will be judged on what it does with what it knows (believes) at the time. If it mistakes a deer for a human, a jury may hold the company less culpable then if it kills the driver to avoid a deer, guessing correctly it's a deer. (A jury would probably expect the passenger's life gets priority over a deer.) Misidentification is typically given more leeway than bad choices based on what's believed to be true. (Assuming it's considered a reasonable mistake, such as one a human could make also.)

    Whether that's fair or good is another matter, it's how humans tend to judge, and what the car co will be subject to when disputes happen. The car co wants to protect their legal tail by making the INTENDED rules reflect what a jury would likely expect.

    It's somewhat comparable to Hillary getting off the hook because she didn't knowingly transmit classified info (i.e., no intent was proven). Her mental (mis) classification of the material made a difference from a legal standpoint.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday November 01 2016, @09:01AM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday November 01 2016, @09:01AM (#421175) Homepage
    Pretty sure you mean omniscience rather than omnipotence.
    With omnipotence, you could just kill those fuckers without needing to dent your car.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves