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The technology is new, but the moral conundrum isn't: A self-driving car identifies a group of children running into the road. There is no time to stop. To swerve around them would drive the car into a speeding truck on one side or over a cliff on the other, bringing certain death to anybody inside.
To anyone pushing for a future for autonomous cars, this question has become the elephant in the room, argued over incessantly by lawyers, regulators, and ethicists; it has even been at the center of a human study by Science. Happy to have their names kept in the background of the life-or-death drama, most carmakers have let Google take the lead while making passing reference to ongoing research, investigations, or discussions.
But not Mercedes-Benz. Not anymore.
The world's oldest car maker no longer sees the problem, similar to the question from 1967 known as the Trolley Problem, as unanswerable. Rather than tying itself into moral and ethical knots in a crisis, Mercedes-Benz simply intends to program its self-driving cars to save the people inside the car. Every time.
Is it really a decision based on morality, or because choosing to save the pedestrians is much harder to code?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:49AM
Pedestrians are walking because they're poor. If the lives of pedestrians had any value then they would be driving instead of walking.
(Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Wednesday October 12 2016, @06:09AM
Bullshit! They're walking because they choose to. Even my small town (50,000) has very low cost public transit.
Questioning science is how you do science!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @06:29AM
Let's see the demographic data for your small town, and then the ridership statistics. Let's see if the poorest blackest people all ride the bus. And oh yeah, shitbrain. Have YOU ridden the bus lately? Or ever? And here's a question to blow your fucking mind, asswipe. When was the last time you gave more than a dollar to a beggar on the bus? I did, Monday of this week.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @06:33AM
When was the last time you gave more than a dollar to a beggar on the bus? I did, Monday of this week.
That was you? Thanks, AC, you made my day!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @06:37AM
You're welcome, and I hope the sandwich you bought with the money was a good one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:07AM
You're welcome, and I hope the crackrock you bought with the money was a good one.
FTFY
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:09PM
I'll have you know, that dollar will go fully towards maintaining his alcohol consumption habit.
Good on you!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:42AM
So, in your small town, everyone can drive from their front porch, to the office, and never walk in traffic, even to cross the street?
We are ALL pedestrians. Unless you're a Trump or a Clinton, you walk. Doesn't matter much that you only have to walk ten miles per week, versus some poor slob who walks 100 miles every week. The real question here is, who has the right of way, vehicles or pedestrians?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:20AM
It's the same as the question, "Who has the right of way, the Ford or the Toyota?" And the answer is the same: "It depends on what they are doing."
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:31AM
We are ALL pedestrians.
But some pedestrians are more equal than others. Think in terms of risk.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by davester666 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:04AM
Exactly. And when cars start being able to talk to each other when they are nearby, it will go one step further. The car with the most valuable occupants will be determined to be the one to be "saved" if a crash is found to be inevitable.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:23AM
Lads, you are so last century.
There will be a real-time auction between insurance companies so that the guys with a cheaper life insurance policy payment are selected as the main victims.
Of course this takes precious milliseconds off the reaction time, so I guess the preferred victims will be given a score in advance.
On the plus side, we will finally have a life insurance that ensures life. This stroke of honesty must be a first in the universe of finance.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday October 12 2016, @02:09PM
so I guess the preferred victims will be given a score in advance.
Well done, but you stopped short... you should be charging people to opt-in to a "Preferentially Insured Program" - like they do for pre-screening for air travel. One can't just give something like pre-scoring away for free!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:10AM
Pedestrians are on the roadway because they are crossing it, and not even rich people cross streets using vehicles. People walking on the road without sidewalks are required to use road shoulder to do so, and walk in a single width column. If they don't, then it is only their fault if they get hit by a car.
This whole debate is pointless. The laws already regulated all situations and assigned blames for every accident. All the moral questions were previously discussed, resolved and are already codified in the law. It just needs to get programmed into decision making computer code.
(Score: 4, Funny) by art guerrilla on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:18AM
thanks for triggering my rant:
drive to work on rural roads, one where it is 55 MPH and i am driving directly into the sunrise, and with the glare of the sun, the glare off the hood, the visor pulled down, i ALMOST hit two stupid kids walking TWO FEET inside the road edge (with NO paved bicycle lane/shoulder), where i didn't see them until i whizzed by at 55+, just *barely* missing the retards... of course, if i had hit them, it would have been 'my fault', even though they were so stupid they metaphysically deserved to be darwined... stupid shits, they couldn't shift two feet over OFF the fucking road until i went by because they would have gotten a grass seed on the cuff of their pants or something...
and the ultimate cause: stupid city mice who don't know shit about living in the country and think schlepping down a rural highway is the same as their suburban cul-de-sac...
same type of 'tards who stand 3-4' inside the road waiting for their bus on another 55MPH road, WHEN THERE IS A SIDEWALK RIGHT NEXT TO THEM... HOW STUPID can people (i don't care their age) be ? ? ? apparently, life-threateningly stupid...
don't get me started on all the idiot parents who drive their precious stupid, fat, ugly snowflakes to the end of their rural lane, and wait for the stupid bus... STOP BABYING your stupid, fat, ugly monsters, NOBODY wants to kidnap those 'tards except their estranged parents... AND they get to the point where they not only DO NOT pull off to the SIDE of the road, but sit RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, RIGHT AT THE STOP SIGN... then, another 'tard parent parks right next to them so they can chat about how stupid and fat and ugly their stupid, fat, ugly monsters are, NEARLY BLOCKING THE WHOLE INTERSECTION because they are too stupid, fat and ugly to realize or care how inconsiderate they are being so they can baby their stupid, fat, ugly 'tards...
grrrrr...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by rts008 on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:36AM
Sounds like an ironclad case of you are driving too fast for conditions to me, not pedestrians, being the problem.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:14PM
And I'm sure the two boys, if they were struck and killed, would be thrilled to know that they were in the legal right.
See, the problem with victim blame shaming is that, yes, it's not the victim's fault, but assuming that the victim didn't want to be victimized, they could have made some "common sense" choices to avoid becoming victims. Reality doesn't care if you think you should have the right to walk across a freeway or through a dark alley in an unsafe neighborhood, you are just fucking yourself over, and no amount of legal recompense will fix that; unless of course your goal was repayment, in which case blaming the victim feels rather justified.
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(Score: 2) by lgw on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:38PM
The laws of physics don't care who is driving too fast for conditions. Look after your own ass when walking.
Also, in the country, "driving too fast for conditions" is the cityboy way to say "driving".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday October 12 2016, @09:14AM
Good explanation, but it does not take into account the krautness of Mercedes.
Just to trace the way German engineers think:
- the objective of self driving cars is? replacing the driver with algorithms and sensors
- the mercedes driver is, statistically speaking, an asshole
- therefore the algorithm must be an asshole
- if choosing between sacrificing self and mowing tender schoolchildren, what would the asshole do?
and here is the explanation.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Funny) by dyingtolive on Wednesday October 12 2016, @12:11PM
It's actually a well known fact that the a Mercedes doesn't actually move itself. The driver gets into the car and then the world revolves around them.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:15PM
Remember, Hitler rode a Mercedes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:01PM
A good friend (he happened to be from mainland China) used the phrase, "Sadistic German engineering" when he was repairing his VW Microbus, so many things were difficult for no good reason. Same when he had a Porsche 914, which used a VW engine. Perhaps Mercedes falls into the same category.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:46PM
You seem to the confusing Mercedes drivers with BMW drivers.
At least here in the states, Mercedes drivers tend to be people who are doing better than their backgrounds would suggest (first-generation immigrants, first-generation middle class, whatever), who are insucre about their social status. It's the car that says "no, really, I'm successful, please accept me!". 1%ers also commonly drive Mercedes E-Class sedans, but they're a small percentage of BMW drivers.
BMW, OTOH, makes inverted porcupines (the pricks are on the inside).
Audi has a weird mix of hipsters looking for the best VW, car nerds who love Quattro, and people who don't want to be seen as a Mercedes driver or BMW driver.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Wednesday October 12 2016, @11:57PM
I read somewhere that a standard clause in German car insurance stipulates that if you swerve to miss a dog and then hit an inanimate object and suffer property damage your insurance will NOT cover said damage.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @12:36PM
Wait, I'm poor? Seems they forgot to tell me! I guess I must have overlooked a minus sign on my bank account balance, as it looked quite positive to me.
But hey, maybe I'm not really walking. Maybe this is just a simulation, and I'm secretly being put into a van as soon as I leave home, to be let out again when I reach my destination.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 12 2016, @12:53PM
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