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posted by janrinok on Wednesday October 12 2016, @05:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the no-more-heroes dept.

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?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by RedBear on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:03AM

    by RedBear (1734) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:03AM (#413323)

    I guess they deciding factor was coming neither from the ethicist nor from the coders, but from the marketing department: They probably decided that most customers would value their own safety higher than the safety of others, so cars that do the same will sell better. Remember, in the end there's only one value that counts for corporations: shareholder value.

    Came in here to say this, basically. But to extend this, it's not like the car will be programmed to go around killing pedestrians. It will be programmed to follow all the normal driving conventions any other driver follows. It just won't be programmed to jerk the wheel into opposing traffic when some a-hole pedestrian suddenly jumps in front of your car when you're moving at 35mph. That's about the only sort of situation where I can imagine the vehicle might actually end up being a real danger to a pedestrian. Unless your car starts self-driving drunk I highly doubt it will present a danger to anyone just because its priority will be to try to keep its own passengers alive in a crash situation. I don't think it's either logical or practical to ask the vehicle's driving logic to attempt to somehow save everything and everyone involved in a split-second accident scenario. Even a human driver can't reliably make good decisions in those situations. It makes perfect sense to me to tell every vehicle to drive responsibly and defensively and protect its own occupants. That doesn't mean pedestrians will be regularly menaced and sacrificed by self-driving vehicles outside of incredibly bizarre and unavoidable circumstances.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:18AM

    by Unixnut (5779) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:18AM (#413328)

    It is something I think most people have an uncomfortable feeling if they admit to themselves, but unless you really are a selfless and pure and fully willing to sacrifice yourself for others, most people will want a self driving car that protects them at all costs. Presumably once someone has kids, this extends to the progeny as well.

    Self-preservation is one of the core tenants of being a living being, it isn't even a specifically human trait, as most life strives towards it. As such deep down most people, whether they get into a car, or out on a street, or doing anything really, will want to maximise their chances of survival. It might not even be a conscious decision, just self selected via evolution (you can guess why).

    I don't think it is a "rich" vs "poor" thing either, most people no matter their income, will want to maximise their chances of living.

    Mercedes are just the first to come out and say it. Not that I like the concept of self driving cars myself (I have many reasons, one of which is having others program morality that decides my fate into a machine) , but I admit that programming them like this may well make them more palatable.

    I mean, If the roles were reversed, and you programmed a car that sacrificed its occupants for strangers every time, how many people would buy those cars? Or want to even get in one, knowing that if push came to shove, they will be sacrificed, no ifs or buts?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:51AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @07:51AM (#413336)

      > It is something I think most people have an uncomfortable feeling if they admit to themselves, but unless you really are a selfless and pure and fully willing to sacrifice yourself for others, most people will want a self driving car that protects them at all costs. Presumably once someone has kids, this extends to the progeny as well.

      I make no claim to be selfless and pure.. however, I still would want the car to prioritise the pedestrian's safety. The reason isn't even particularly ethic based.

      My vehicle is jam-packed full of gear that aims to protect me (and the others in it) in the event of it hitting another solid object at speed. Airbags, seatbelts, crumple-zones etc. In the case of oncoming traffic, they are also similarly equipped. Excepts buses for some reason (and this really annoys me).

      Pedestrians lack such protection.

      As cars are more equipped to deal with collisions than pedestrians, the onus is on the car to deal with the collision.

      • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:28AM

        by Unixnut (5779) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:28AM (#413345)

        But we are not talking about such collisions, because the safety of the car passengers are guaranteed. Such low speed impacts (say 30mph) are obvious and pose no moral dilemma.

        This issue deals with the accidents which will cause the loss of life. That is where the moral ambiguity comes about. Nobody is arguing that cars should mow pedestrians down at 30mph while there is no risk to the safety of passengers in a 30mph crash. This is the "trolley dilemma", where circumstances mean someone is going to die no matter what, and the car has to pick who.

        In fact one of the main arguments given for self driving cars is their lightning fast reactions will mean that there will be no more low-speed collisions at all. So by extension the only collisions that would occur are ones that pose a threat to life, and that is where we get to discuss programmed morals, and having to sacrifice someone.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @10:11AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13 2016, @10:11AM (#413822)

          If the only collisions we are considering are the high-speed ones (90mph?), the car should still choose to target that which is more likely to result in the preservation of life.

          A car going 90mph and hitting a pedestrian is, if not certainly, pretty close to be considering it is 85% fatal at 40mph IIRC, going to kill the pedestrian.

          However, a car hitting a tree at 90mph still retains the chance of the occupants surviving because, again, it's full of equipment that aims to achieve this in those scenarios.

          Also, a major difference from the trolley problem is that the people in the car chose to be there, whereas the people in the trolley problem tend to be there *contrary* to their desires. If they don't like that the car will risk them over a pedestrian, they can choose another car (or be the pedestrian).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:42AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12 2016, @08:42AM (#413348)

        * They generally travel at relatively low speeds
        * They are driven exclusively by professional drivers
        * Their sheer mass makes them nearly impervious to collisions with passenger vehicles
        * Their ride height keeps their passengers out of the path of most vehicles that would hit them (although the new low-floor city buses reverse this trend in order to simplify boarding of disabled passengers)
        * Passengers probably wouldn't use them anyway, and even the latest airbags are extremely dangerous to unbelted passengers
        * Passengers, if thrown from their seat, will usually impact an adjacent seat rather than being ejected or hitting a hard or sharp surface

        City buses and school buses almost never suffer passenger fatalities, especially in situations where safety devices would have helped. Over-the-road buses are most likely to kill passengers in rollover or loss of control accidents rather than due to collisions.

        Beginning this year, new over-the-road buses are required to have seat belts in the US. However, existing buses are not required to be retrofitted.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 12 2016, @01:37PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday October 12 2016, @01:37PM (#413423) Homepage
      > core tenants

      minor nit: tenets

      Unless you meant Tennents, the superstrong lager?
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday October 12 2016, @04:54PM

        by Unixnut (5779) on Wednesday October 12 2016, @04:54PM (#413527)

        Why thank thee , thy linguistic pendant!

        and sounds like Tennents might be an idea. A pint to thee for your services! :)

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Thursday October 13 2016, @05:41AM

      by tftp (806) on Thursday October 13 2016, @05:41AM (#413778) Homepage

      There is another direction of thought. The computer is in control of the car and of the passenger. If the car does something, it will happen. It becomes deterministic. However the behavior of the other party (such as a pedestrian) is not deterministic. The car cannot be sure that if it swerves left and hits a tree, the pedestrian will not run forward (or back) and get hit anyway. The probabity of everyone dying is not zero. However if the car ignores the unpredictable pedestrian and always saves the occupant, the probability of both dying is zero, as the passenger survives. (Well, give or take.) For that reason it is statistically advantageous to optimize saving the occupant - the car has better chances to succeed.