Autonomous Vehicle Ethics

So what are some of the ethical issues that deal with driverless cars and should we expect robot cars to be more ethical than human drivers? Another question automakers of the driverless car will have to answer is who will be held responsible when a driverless car has an accident with another vehicle? Can a driverless car make a judgment call when it’s faced with avoiding an accident between a shopping cart and a baby carriage? Technologist ethicists are pushing to have these questions of moral and ethical judgments answered during the design phase. (Headrick, 2014). Oops, they may be a little late when it comes to driverless cars. But there is still time, experts predict that 75 percent of cars will be self-driving by 2040. (Bailey, 2014)

The automated vehicles is not fully established to society and has not been fully completed so far so we do not know specifically if the automated vehicles will cause or get into accidents but it is bound to happen. Since the autonomous car is driverless it is run by algorithms of artificial intelligence and micro robotic related components to function. What would happened if you put the autonomous car in a position where it had to choose to be in different types of accidents for e.g. A young kid, a cyclist with protective gear such as a helmet and pads or another car that a person is in that could become way worse and harm even more people. These are all issues that surround the “Rights Theory” and that if this automated vehicles becomes established in the future this will be very different and unique due to the fact that it is driverless so who is to blame and in rough situations who would it decide to harm in an accident since this is artificial intelligence we should have the right to know everything about this, the ins and outs of what could or would happen before releasing this into the public. And having the rights theory viewpoint I think it would be best to have it come without any pre-determined decide in advance in the decision making and function and

Volkswagen is under investigation following reports from the EPA that they had installed software into their engines that deceived emissions testers. Furthermore, engineers updated this software in 2014, claiming that they were improving the vehicles. James Liang, a senior engineer who had worked for Volkswagen for 30 years, admitted to investigators in September of 2016 that he had designed the software in question. Further investigation has revealed that this conspiracy may have involved executives of the company. It is unknown to the public whether Liang was acting under orders when he designed the software or he decided to create it on his own to meet requirements his superiors gave him. Both rule utilitarianism and Kantian duty ethics

While Hollywood’s interpretations of futures where robots take over the human race are highly entertaining, the movie predictions may not be so far from present times. Take the example of the artificially intelligent robot Ultron, from Avengers: Age of Ultron, who was programmed with the task of achieving world peace. Without any specifications, he believed this goal would only be achieved by abolishing humankind. Artificial intelligence (AI), takes instructions very literally and the results will be disastrous in both a physical and mental sense when it starts thinking for itself. In essence, self-driving cars create moral dilemmas and safety concerns regarding artificially intelligent technology being programmed to coexist with humans.

Similarly, the article “The Moral Challenges of Driverless Cars” explains how driverless cars will be a safer alternative. It explains how humans are more prone to cause an accident than the driverless cars. The article describes the processing behind the vehicles and some problems they face while making them along with how this will delay their production. It also clarifies how the cars will be able to make the decisions that will keep people safe instead of putting them in harm’s way. Finally, the article describes the ethical issues and automation in cars today. According to Kirkpatrick, the cars are equipped with software that determine what reaction to make in different situations that would take a human more time to make, therefore, avoiding an accident. As stated in this article, there is still much work to be done before the cars are actually ready to sell to the public.

Utilitarian Ethics are measured by the ends resulting in greater total happiness versus the initial means to get there. Therefore the most optimal way that Utilitarianism works is through the greatest utility to all. If I were to keep an eye out for the vehicle in question, I would only be serving myself and the tow truck driver. The utility that would serve the greater

My research topic is about who is responsible for a self-driving car accident? The driver or the car manufacturer? This is probably the most popular topic regarding on self-driving cars, it is an ethical issue since it involves both human being and technology. Based on deontology ethical framework, the driver cannot responsible for a faulty self-driving system, but driver does have the responsibility to control the car in current social culture.

I find it humorous that this week’s discussion on driverless vehicles is the same exact subject my wife and I were talking about on Sunday during our unscheduled trip back home from Kansas City, Missouri. Since this trip interfered with our other plans, we were discussing how pleasant it would be if our vehicle was one that was automated because we believed we had better things to do with our time. Actually, this idea was even more evident when we became stalled in a traffic jam due to a stalled vehicle on the road. Therefore, if I were a decision maker in regards to driverless vehicles, I would choose Egoism to be the most ethical pre-programmed crash decision software. (O.C. Ferrell, Fraedrich & L. Ferrell, 2013). The reason I chose Egoism

Windsor researched into this possibility. He asks these simple, but important questions “But should they be programmed to make the decision that is best for their owners? Or the choice that does the least harm -- even if that means choosing to slam into a retaining wall to avoid hitting an oncoming school bus?” Once I read over the first question I knew that the ugliness of business would rather develop a car that takes their customers lives into greater importance than other drivers. It would not make sense to program a car to save the life of other drivers when they are not paying to have a “safety guard”, if you

In this scenario, I think the act utilitarianism best supports my choice. Act utilitarianisms observe precise movements, rather than the general rules governing them, to assess whether they will result in the greatest utility (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). I am concerned with the consequences of my actions, but I would rather make a decision that benefits the greatest number of people. I think autonomous vehicles should act in ways that preserve the most lives. As people, we react to dangerous situations due to our reflexes. Therefore our judgment at the time of a crisis might not be the best decision. But we respond to a dangerous situation in whatever way we can to avoid a catastrophic outcome. Utilitarian thinking involves

Hi Ashley, you have made some good arguments on the utilitarianism philosophy, but I’ll have to disagree with your concept. Ferrell, Fraedrich, and Ferrell (2013) pointed out that the utility view will minimize the total harm by considering the greatest number of people. However, the driverless cars will be the safest way to travel. According to Lin (n.d.), the self-driving cars will remove the human error by eliminating distractions and make road conditions easy to maneuver. So, if I’m in a self-driving vehicle and those around me are in manual mode driving, and they fall asleep behind the wheel or texting while driving on the phone, there is no way I would want my driverless car to sacrifice myself at the expense of someone being careless.

In the article Why Self Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill, there are robotic cars being manufactured. These vehicles will get better gas mileage and prevent less accidents compared to human driven vehicles. One dilemma due to these robotic vehicles is if a time comes where you are riding in your robotic vehicle and it heads straight into a group of ten people the only way to save these people is to swerve and crash into a wall killing the driver and the occupants of the vehicle. Most people are comfortable with the idea that self driving cars should be programmed to minimize the death toll. These issues can not be ignored because how much time and money these car companies have endowed in this robotic advanced product. Which one would choose when it comes down to it?

After watching the movie I, Robot, I find that many ethical issues come about from the technology shown in the movie. The movie takes place in 2035 and is about robots that are programmed with Three Laws: First Law-A robot must never harm a human being or, through inaction, allow any harm to come to a human; Second Law-A robot must obey the orders given to them by human beings, except where such orders violate the First Law; Third Law- A robot must protect its own existence unless this violates the First or Second Laws. Humans use these robots to do common tasks for them. Some of the ethical questions arisen from this movie include do robots have the ability to make emotional or ethical decision, are they entitled to the same rights as

One of the touted benefits of autonomous vehicles is that it will reduce the need for parking in urban areas, where parking is often a premium. By 2035, it is estimated that the need for parking space should decline more than 5.7 billion square meters as a result of driverless cars. Experts speculate that individual car ownership will become a thing of the past, and that individuals will purchase a subscription service or buy into a “cardominium” where an autonomous vehicle, that no longer needs to be parked on site, will arrive and take an individual to their desired destination.

First of all, making a moral decision in some emergency situation may be impossible for an autonomous car. Newcomb (2014) mentions the “tunnel problem” which was a hypothesis about autonomous cars in emergency. There was an autonomous car traveling in a single-lane highway, and a boy who was crossing inside tumbled when the car was going into a tunnel. The car had to strike either side of the tunnel entrance with sacrificing the life of passengers, otherwise hit the boy to death. In this situation, whichever the autonomous car choice, it will take the blame of immorality. Specifically, if an autonomous car was set as