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Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

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Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#41

Post by mnw21cam »

[deleted] wrote: post #34
mavhc wrote: post #4

Your car is already designed to kill you, it doesn't contain equipment to protect you at the cost of many other people's lives. There's no cow catcher type device on the front for example

[deleted]

That wasn't the point of the comment. A cow catcher is a rigid set of bars designed to stop a heavy animal from hitting the rest of the car. A vehicle with a cow catcher hitting a human is more likely to injure or kill them than a vehicle without a cow catcher. The pedestrian safety features on modern cars are a bit like the opposite of a cow catcher - they try to soften the blow on the pedestrian, at the possibly higher risk of the pedestrian going through the windscreen and killing the driver. After all, if you wanted to protect the occupants of the car at all costs to pedestrians, you would just install a cow catcher.

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#42

Post by nhdev »

gambiting wrote: post #27
jlebrech wrote: post #16

don't program it to swerve in any direction, brakes and tires should do the trick.

what if going straight will kill more people than swerving? You are driving in a turn, a tyre blows - a system which "gives up" and just applies the brakes as hard as it can allows the car to continue forward - maybe in a path of a school bus, maybe into a group of bystanders, maybe off a cliff. But if you allow it to turn,even a little - how do you know you are not injuring more people?

Under what situation would that happen? It happens with human drivers because they are driving too fast to stop in time. It's very simple... if you need 50 feet to stop you make sure at minimum you have 50 feet to stop. If there are things obscuring your view to the left and right you drive slower to reduce your stopping distance and make sure if something jumps out you still have enough time.

Now, if you are to consider that something jumps out in front of your car (say a deer) which reduces your reaction time, the car should do the same thing a human would do. Slam on the breaks to reduce impact speed.

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#43

Post by chernevik »

nhdev wrote: post #35
_lce0 wrote: post #33

I can imagine this scenario: in a bridge without any place to go but ahead .. ------------------------------------------------- 5 people a) The car can break, but the heavy truck below will certainly kill the car's only passenger, who's on the back seat b) The car hit and potentially kill most of the people standing, but save its passenger c) The car can jump to the void Scary as it sounds, what the car would do depe…

(d) The car would stop because unlike human drivers, a self-driving car would be programmed to avoid going so fast that it can't stop if a sudden obstacle would appear (aside from maybe something falling from the sky).

Bridges ice before roads. It is easy to imagine conditions where stopping distances on such a bridge suddenly jump.

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#44

Post by mnw21cam »

chernevik wrote: post #36
[deleted] wrote: post #32

[deleted]

Four years ago I was driving down a hill in insanely slick weather. Though I was driving very slowly, the car skidded, and was heading into an extremely busy street. I had enough steering to put the car into a tree, slowly, rather risk something really serious. Not quite a Trolley Problem -- _I_ was among those better off by cutting the losses. But yes, weird situations and choices do emerge.

How did the insurance work out for you on that one?

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#45

Post by inestyne »

The car should protect it's occupants at all cost because that would be the normal reaction of someone driving the car themselves. In that case the car has been pre-programmed not to make a choice.

When faced with a split second decision whether to live or die, humans choose to live, that's how we made it this far...

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#46

Post by pjkundert »

Remember: we do not even have cruise control that is usable in the winter. Once any autonomous driving system can provide even this basic function (not soon, I fear), then we can talk about more complex behavior...

This debate about what autonomous vehicles will do in extreme situations is but the "tip of the iceberg".

Until all autonomous drive systems can be "unit tested" under a standard suite of simulated sensor inputs, one would be wise to assume that they are wildly unsuitable for anything but the most trivial driving situations (eg. Golf courses, closed estates).

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#47

Post by chernevik »

baldeagle wrote: post #38
_lce0 wrote: post #33

I can imagine this scenario: in a bridge without any place to go but ahead .. ------------------------------------------------- 5 people a) The car can break, but the heavy truck below will certainly kill the car's only passenger, who's on the back seat b) The car hit and potentially kill most of the people standing, but save its passenger c) The car can jump to the void Scary as it sounds, what the car would do depe…

With computer controlled braking, the car could spin around to take the hit on a front corner. This would provide the least danger to the occupant while not hitting the people. Though it does assume the truck is not stopping. In all likelihood it would just stop assuming the truck would stop... The same call any human driver would make if they weren't texting or otherwise distracted. It doesn't have to be perfect, ju…

No it couldn't. Spinning -> less traction -> less stopping power -> longer stopping distance.

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#48

Post by pkorzeniewski »

imgabe wrote: post #14

It's an interesting thought experiment, but I think a real situation with such a stark binary choice is so improbable that it's barely worth considering. Cars are not on trolley tracks and computers can brake or swerve harder and faster than any human could.

How about an animal jumping in front of your car - a very common situation - when there's no way to avoid it. Computer could assume it's a human and do absolutely anything to avoid it, crashing into a tree and seriously injuring anyone in the car. I encounter so strange situations on roads, I can't imagine self-driving car being prepared for all of them.

Re: Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you?

#49

Post by baldfat »

_lce0 wrote: post #33

I can imagine this scenario: in a bridge without any place to go but ahead .. ------------------------------------------------- 5 people a) The car can break, but the heavy truck below will certainly kill the car's only passenger, who's on the back seat b) The car hit and potentially kill most of the people standing, but save its passenger c) The car can jump to the void Scary as it sounds, what the car would do depe…

In 4/28/2006 Radio Lab (PBS Amazing Podcast) did a show on morality. They tell the moral choice people will make:

The program begins with a moral conundrum.

You're working with a crew doing track repairs (presumably, using heavy equipment such that you can't hear much else) when you happen to look up to see a locomotive rushing towards five of your buddies who are working on the tracks. But just as quickly you realize that you're standing next to a rail-switch which you could use to divert the train to a second track on which only one of your workmates is standing.

Should you throw the switch?

Ninety percent of a great-many people who've been polled say they would throw the switch.

The next scenerio has you and a coworker (a very large fellow) working on a footbridge above the tracks. Again, you look to see the locomotive bearing down upon five of your friends who are working on the tracks. You quickly realize that the only way you can stop the train is to push the big guy standing next to you off the footbridge, whereupon his massive body will stop the train (yes, I know, but just go with it).

Should you push your coworker in front of the locomotive?

Ninety percent of a great-many people polled say they would not push the man in front of the train, even if by doing so they could save the other five men.

Now we have your in a car and it could choice to turn right or left into a tree killing you or continue straight and kill 5 children who were crossing the road. What would you want your car to do?

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