A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics • Hacker News Board

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#31

Post by jorjordandan » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:01 AM UTC

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

Is this whole "question" really just a mental exercise, like the trolley problem? Surely the more salient question is how much senseless death could be prevented by the adoption of self driving technology, isn't it? This 'conundrum' almost seems to be intended to undercut trust in what could surely be a massive improvement to vehicle safety.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#32

Post by x3n0ph3n3 » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:16 AM UTC

ordu wrote: post #13

vishvananda wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does solving the moral dilemma of prioritization based on attributes of the person seem like a worthless endeavor? In practice, I can't come up with a case where it would matter. For example, a more reasonable metric for a machine to use is the probability of injury/death. If swerving is 90% likely to kill a person and staying straight is only 89% likely, then staying straight is a better choice. I d…

89% percent chance to kill homeless person or 90% chance to kill pregnant woman? > I don't see how attributes of the person would ever trump the probability of harm. Maybe they shouldn't, maybe they should. How do we know? What are the terminal values? Society effectiveness? Or equality of all humans? Or minimizing public outcry in cases when autonomous car killed someone? > The cases where probability is roughly equ…

Do you expect a person to be able to solve that problem? Would you fault a person for not solving it the way you want it solved? If not, why should a driverless car?

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#33

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:26 AM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #25

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

I agree with you that this example is so theoretical as to be useless. In addition, focusing on this masks some other more relevant ethical/legal questions. 1. If the car sees a police car flash it's lights for it to pull over, should it pull over unconditionally - not allowing the driver to over-ride? 2. If there is an Amber alert broadcast specifying the car, should it automatically try to alert the authorities as…

Vehicles with telematics are anyway broadcasting their location. Pretty much all recent vehicles have telematics.

Most restriction orders aren't worded in a way that could easily be encoded beforehand; they could include language restricting autonomous vehicles...

For the emergency situation, if there is a button, it could just interact with the traffic control systems. If there's no traffic at the light, the light could let the car through.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#34

Post by brokenmachine » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:27 AM UTC

ordu wrote: post #13

vishvananda wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does solving the moral dilemma of prioritization based on attributes of the person seem like a worthless endeavor? In practice, I can't come up with a case where it would matter. For example, a more reasonable metric for a machine to use is the probability of injury/death. If swerving is 90% likely to kill a person and staying straight is only 89% likely, then staying straight is a better choice. I d…

89% percent chance to kill homeless person or 90% chance to kill pregnant woman? > I don't see how attributes of the person would ever trump the probability of harm. Maybe they shouldn't, maybe they should. How do we know? What are the terminal values? Society effectiveness? Or equality of all humans? Or minimizing public outcry in cases when autonomous car killed someone? > The cases where probability is roughly equ…

>89% percent chance to kill homeless person or 90% chance to kill pregnant woman?

Just fat, or pregnant? We need to know! Get onto it, engineers!

The car's algorithm for deciding this question is a matter of life or death!

/s of course, because I think this whole philosophical argument about self-driving cars is ridiculous when our current tech can't even reliably determine if an object is a stationary barrier or not.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#35

Post by oliveshell » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:34 AM UTC

jorjordandan wrote: post #31

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

Is this whole "question" really just a mental exercise, like the trolley problem? Surely the more salient question is how much senseless death could be prevented by the adoption of self driving technology, isn't it? This 'conundrum' almost seems to be intended to undercut trust in what could surely be a massive improvement to vehicle safety.

> Surely the more salient question is how much senseless death could be prevented by the adoption of self driving technology, isn't it?

Absolutely. However, when answering that question, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to thoughtfully consider this stuff.

Clearly, even flawed autonomous driving— if widely adopted— would save many lives. But I can’t think of many things that would slow that adoption more than a public perception of “killer robots” roaming the streets.

If we seriously want wide adoption, it’ll be hard to avoid addressing the qualitative perceptual difference between a death caused by a human driver and one caused by a machine that we’ve engineered.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#36

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:36 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #12

vishvananda wrote: post #3

Is it just me or does solving the moral dilemma of prioritization based on attributes of the person seem like a worthless endeavor? In practice, I can't come up with a case where it would matter. For example, a more reasonable metric for a machine to use is the probability of injury/death. If swerving is 90% likely to kill a person and staying straight is only 89% likely, then staying straight is a better choice. I d…

What’s the reliability of the risk assessment? If you child died because there was a 1% higher projected chance that two people would be killed in a collision... would that seem just? I think the insistence on experimenting with autonomous driving outside of controlled access highways is insane.

We let teenagers drive.

I think it is easy enough to predict that all the systems will do is prioritize avoiding pedestrians while minimizing collision energy otherwise. A 30 mph collision will mess up a pedestrian. It won't be a big deal for restrained passengers.

If it is frequently the case that autonomous systems have to pick between pedestrians, that points to traffic control changes, not a philosophy engine in the car.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#37

Post by cortic » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 3:54 AM UTC

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

Should a car, generally prioritize the survival of its occupant or pedestrian? Not answering this is the same as answering it with 'surprise me'. And either answer is wrong.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#38

Post by rootusrootus » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:07 AM UTC

cortic wrote: post #37

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

Should a car, generally prioritize the survival of its occupant or pedestrian? Not answering this is the same as answering it with ' surprise me '. And either answer is wrong.

Neither. It should just try to stop. Calculating fatality probabilities is way out of scope.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#39

Post by mikeash » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:18 AM UTC

cortic wrote: post #37

b_tterc_p wrote: post #5

“ if a car detects a sudden obstacle—say, a jackknifed truck—should it hit the truck and kill its own driver, or should it swerve onto a crowded sidewalk and kill pedestrians? A human driver might react randomly (if she has time to react at all), but the response of an autonomous vehicle would have to be programmed ahead of time. ” I hate this logic. No, it didn’t need to be programmed ahead of time. It should try to…

Should a car, generally prioritize the survival of its occupant or pedestrian? Not answering this is the same as answering it with ' surprise me '. And either answer is wrong.

You could ask the same question about human drivers, yet zero attention is paid to this question, and zero time is spent on it during driver training.

Re: A Study on Driverless-Car Ethics

#40

Post by xiphias2 » Thu, Jan 31, 2019, 4:25 AM UTC

The real ethical question is not asked: should a driverless car be allowed on the street if it waits 10 minutes at the left turn while making a traffic jam?

Real autonomous cars are already making real problems. I believe it's Waymo's job to take over the left turns if the waiting line is too long.