Have you ever wondered if there are any ethical dilemmas when it comes to an autonomous vehicle?
A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with the former CEO of a railway company here in Switzerland. He had spent his entire professional life working in the industry and had a keen eye on the future of mobility. When I asked him if he could see any problems with autonomous vehicles in the future, he was very fast to point out that they will need an ethical setting.
I had to think about this for a while. What on earth did it mean to give a car an ethical setting? What followed was a lengthy conversation about the decisions an autonomous vehicle would have to make if a child ran in front of it. Obviously, it would stop or swerve right? But what happens if swerving means hitting someone else? What decision would he car need to make? Well there you have it, the autonomous car problem.
The Autonomous Car Problem
https://youtu.be/9yPQMqZypZI
I must admit, that I have no idea which decisions a car would and should be programmed with. I hope that one never has to decide on one human life over the other. However, from the thought side and thinking about the future it’s a really interesting topic, and it will need to be tackled more and more in the future.
Let me know what you think. Is this the reality? And if so, how would you decide the programming of the vehicle?
If you are interested in the future of mobility, then take a look at my other blogs.
Four reasons that going car-free is the future of mobility
Alternatives to the traditional ridesharing model
Peer-To-Peer mobility doesn’t always work
Commuting at a social distance
Mobility Access versus Ownership
I recalled the trolley problem from memory of an ethics class I took years ago. However, to be sure I used the concept correctly, I consulted the following article. If you are interested, in digs a lot deeper into the topic than I have.
Thomson, J. (1985). The Trolley Problem. The Yale Law Journal,94(6), 1395-1415. doi:10.2307/796133
The following text also digs into the human aspect of inserting your ethics into the software of a vehicle. This was used to confirm the ethical issues with autonomous vehicles are in fact a concern.
Applin, “Autonomous Vehicle Ethics: Stock or custom?,” inIEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 108-110, July 2017, doi: 10.1109/MCE.2017.2684917.
Photo by Bram Van Oost on Unsplash
