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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: 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.

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  • (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.