Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Technology in driving is becoming more dominant...
User avatar
akirk
Posts: 1657
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 6:58 pm
Location: Bristol

Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby akirk » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:03 am

Summary here:
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/54 ... d-to-kill/

Original paper here:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1510.03346v1.pdf

the ethics of an autonomous car - should it kill you the driver to save 10 pedestrians? if so, would you buy it?

Alasdair

User avatar
jont-
Posts: 1521
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:12 am
Location: Herefordshire

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby jont- » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:08 am

Why do we think self-driving cars are inevitably going to crash? Surely the whole point is not to get themselves into these situations in the first place?

User avatar
akirk
Posts: 1657
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 6:58 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby akirk » Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:18 am

maybe we don't, but it would be a very confident person who believed nothing could go wrong - we have already seen with the Google cars that they take such a cautious stance regarding possible issues (including waiting for pedestrians on the pavement to move away, even though of no consequence) that other drivers drive into them! On the basis that AI as a concept is still a long way from reality, can we believe that a computer will have the ability to make the same / right / better judgement than a human? It can't on an AI basis, so it has to have every eventuality programmed into it - which means you have to program scenarios such as these - which leads to an ethical dilemma...

Alasdair

User avatar
jont-
Posts: 1521
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:12 am
Location: Herefordshire

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby jont- » Fri Oct 23, 2015 9:06 am

On a related note, what about if the hackers change the ethics....
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328103

MrToad
Posts: 86
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 2:28 pm
Location: Bristol

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby MrToad » Fri Oct 23, 2015 12:05 pm

Computer gamers of a certain age will be familiar with what could happen...

Image

User avatar
ChristianAB
Posts: 270
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:51 pm

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby ChristianAB » Sat Feb 27, 2016 2:27 pm

Every now and then there is a fad. We had 3D TV for instance, and before that true AI. But now we are starting to see that technological progress follows its own broken master plan.
The same, I believe, applies to autonomous vehicle. The story is a tad long, but bear with me.

I worked about 9 years ago on the ethics of nanotechnology. Back then, nanotechnology was all the rage. Well,...we know what happened since then (or rather we don't): nanotechnology didn't deliver the all-encompassing changes that some anticipated. Anyhow, at the time, one interesting question was about the relationship between consciousness and technology: what would happen if you replaced brain cells, one by one, with their computerised equivalent, performing the same function? Wouldn't you obtain a thinking machine? At the heart of it, the debate was about whether we, humans, were anything more than biological machines, soon to be made obsolete by nano-manufactured copies of our ourselves. Of course, we now know that there are fundamental reasons why this won't happen any time soon (but this is an entirely different and fascinating topic).
However and without going into too much details, I believe that this mechanistic view of the world results from top-down ignorance, that is, ignorance of the finer details of life and reality.
The concept of an autonomous car, just as the concept of humans as biological machine, is easily grasped and feels intuitive for many and even self-evident to a few. However, look more closely and you are assaulted by messy details: thorny ethical issues, unforeseen events, bugs, hacks and politics, cancers and self-contradictions. This messiness, in my view, IS the reality, as opposed to our simplified top-down generalisation. Unfortunately, scientists and engineers and especially young scientists and engineers, tend to lack the experience of life required to understand that the devil, as they say, is often in the details.

Coding a car that is proficient in 99% of situations was always going to be the easy bit.

Wake-up, dreamers, and taste the red pill.

fungus
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 5:26 pm
Location: Dorset

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby fungus » Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:14 pm

ChristianAB wrote:Every now and then there is a fad. We had 3D TV for instance, and before that true AI. But now we are starting to see that technological progress follows its own broken master plan.
The same, I believe, applies to autonomous vehicle. The story is a tad long, but bear with me.

I worked about 9 years ago on the ethics of nanotechnology. Back then, nanotechnology was all the rage. Well,...we know what happened since then (or rather we don't): nanotechnology didn't deliver the all-encompassing changes that some anticipated. Anyhow, at the time, one interesting question was about the relationship between consciousness and technology: what would happen if you replaced brain cells, one by one, with their computerised equivalent, performing the same function? Wouldn't you obtain a thinking machine? At the heart of it, the debate was about whether we, humans, were anything more than biological machines, soon to be made obsolete by nano-manufactured copies of our ourselves. Of course, we now know that there are fundamental reasons why this won't happen any time soon (but this is an entirely different and fascinating topic).
However and without going into too much details, I believe that this mechanistic view of the world results from top-down ignorance, that is, ignorance of the finer details of life and reality.
The concept of an autonomous car, just as the concept of humans as biological machine, is easily grasped and feels intuitive for many and even self-evident to a few. However, look more closely and you are assaulted by messy details: thorny ethical issues, unforeseen events, bugs, hacks and politics, cancers and self-contradictions. This messiness, in my view, IS the reality, as opposed to our simplified top-down generalisation. Unfortunately, scientists and engineers and especially young scientists and engineers, tend to lack the experience of life required to understand that the devil, as they say, is often in the details.

Coding a car that is proficient in 99% of situations was always going to be the easy bit.

Wake-up, dreamers, and taste the red pill.


Here here.

Nigel.

User avatar
Strangely Brown
Posts: 1012
Joined: Sun Sep 27, 2015 8:06 pm
Location: Sussex

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby Strangely Brown » Sat Feb 27, 2016 9:31 pm

fungus wrote:Here here.


Where? Where?

User avatar
Horse
Posts: 3540
Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2015 9:20 am

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby Horse » Sun Feb 28, 2016 11:26 am

So, CAB, are you saying that programming an auto car might be a bit 'hit and miss'? ;)
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

fungus
Posts: 439
Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2015 5:26 pm
Location: Dorset

Re: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Postby fungus » Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:18 pm

Strangely Brown wrote:
fungus wrote:Here here.


Where? Where?


There there.


Return to “Technology”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest