"Should I laugh like an evil genius or a bond villain after I throw a very life like child mannequin in front of my sworn enemies RoboCar?" was the thought that entered my mind when reading this. The situation in the article is a really contrived example to represent a closed context with one option (car, tunnel, child, someone will die but who) and seeks to evoke a level of "Justice must be upheld" feeling in the readers response. Its a shitty scenario and in today's world kids who fall in the middle of the road get killed and unless the driver was speeding or impaired in some fashion the whole incident is chalked up to being an unfortunate event with little real blame going anywhere. Why would we change this now simple because we have the option to do so and any split second decision based on the "age" of the victims as representing their value is a very risky one indeed. But beyond the hypothetical lets talk market forces, how eager would you be to drive a car that may kill you to save a stranger? I think id be upgrading the firmware on that baby pretty quickly. Yea i'll take the "Save the owner and his family in all scenarios" option along with the 21" alloys.
Good point. Perhaps the cars could have a customizable 'martyr' setting, which can be dialed up from 'chipmunk' to 'kindergarten class'. To make things interesting, maybe the current setting could be displayed on your back bumper.But beyond the hypothetical lets talk market forces, how eager would you be to drive a car that may kill you to save a stranger? I think id be upgrading the firmware on that baby pretty quickly. Yea i'll take the "Save the owner and his family in all scenarios" option along with the 21" alloys.
Articles like this are going to be more and more common as journalists go "driverless cars!" without making the slightest bit of effort to understand the mechanics - the logic of driverless cars. Collision avoidance has been in place in autonomous robots for 30+ years. The time for ethical discussions was then, not now, as the codification of vehicular behavior relies on code and decisions that has been real-world tested since Carter was president.
Understanding the technology is never a requirement for writing about the philosophical problems it looks like it might pose if you don't understand it.
You can't blame them though, it's not like Sebastian Thrun made an introduction suitable for anyone who vaguely recalls their high school math classes or anything.