The Ethical Implications Of Autonomous Vehicles

In the article, “Will Self-Driving Cars be Good for America” (March 10, 2016), Robert Peterson argues that America is ready for self-driving cars to take over the streets. The author first reports the statistics of car related accidents in America, and how much the damages have cost in all; he then presents all the benefits of autnomous cars by discussing how it will benefit people of all ages by limiting expenses, and being able to reach a destination without the need for a license; and to conclude, he then finishes his article by alerting the audience that they need to get ready for what’s about to happen to the automotive industry in America. His purpose is to inform the reader in order to convince them that autonomous cars are the only

Right now self-driving cars and trucks are hitting the road and will soon be available to the general market . Major companies like Google, Tesla, Uber and Delphi are leading in autonomous cars industry. In the past few years, these companies have made great strides improving this technology. Addressing the concerns for this technology must be concluded before it reaches the general public. Given the current state of automobiles that don’t need drivers the American consumer needs to be mindful that moral decisions this technology is handling puts them at risk due to the fact that this is emerging technology, laws are being made that will shape this technology, and who is choosing who lives and who dies.

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.

Many great technological feats have been accomplished in the past few years, one of the most notable would be the creation of self-driving cars. Along with the topic of what can be done with this technology, there is also the topic of what should be done with the technology from an ethical standpoint. Self-driving cars while not perfected are worth their innumerous benefits, despite the current limitations and drawbacks. Every year there are numerous incidents where the driver is responsible for a crash or even death. A self-driving car could be the very solution necessary to solving the abundance of accidents that occur daily across the nation. There are different levels of automation ranging on the amount of the drivers control of the vehicles. This technology is already being implemented in creative and helpful ways, and has been successfully tested.

As many people head out to start their days, a good majority will get into their cars and face many split second decisions. As humans when faced with split second decisions, it is impossible to always make the right choice. Autonomous cars are unable to make ethical decisions, such as deciding which way to swerve where both either direction (right or left) could endanger others.

Since the beginning of self-driving cars which first began in 1925 with the creation of the Houdina Radio Control; a car operated by two cars, a transmitter, and an antenna, to now - the futuristic dream of these autonomous cars have transformed into the reality of cars we see now. These cars are nothing short of the new technology advances that have occurred over the past decade. However, with these advances many question whether or not these cars are ready to be sold, due to the fatal accident that occurred May 2016 involving the autonomous Tesla and a white truck. Due to the Tesla not being able to detect the white tractor because of technological issues, the tesla failed to stop, and since the driver was not prepared to steer, it lead to the fatal collision eventually leading to the death of the tesla owner. With the increase of these cars on the road, from companies like BMW, Daimler, Ford, Apple, Uber, and Google, this poses a serious threat to not only the people operating this autonomous vehicle but also to the surrounding drivers. I believe that autonomous cars should not be put on the road, and that these cars are not beneficial to the population.

We envision in the future, you can take your hands off the wheel, and your commute becomes restful or productive instead of frustrating and exhausting,” said Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council, adding that highly automated vehicles “will save time, money and lives.” (3). Driverless cars are an on growing technological development that has been gaining popularity in the automotive industry. This new technology is being used in applications such as collision and crash avoidance, but arises a fear for safety. The moral dilemma surfaces from putting human lives in the hands of, essentially, a robot chauffeur. I plan to explore safety ethics through a Utilitarian, including the line drawing technique, and Kantian perspective

When considering the best overall consequences for a situation or for society it would be best to have a utilitarian point of view. Utilitarian’s believe that an act is morally right if and only if its consequences are at least as good as the consequences of every alternative act (Peterson). The consequences are measured in terms of pleasure, wellbeing, and preference satisfaction. According to Dr. Peterson at Texas A&M, “ Utilitarianism is a criterion of moral rightness, not a decision making procedure”. According to utilitarianism, if the positive consequences do not out weigh the negative for autonomous vehicles; society will therefore not buy an autonomous vehicle. Society will make moral judgments on the consequential facts; such as if

With the emergence of autonomous vehicle technology, it would indicate that the days of manual driving are over. Individuals will no longer sit behind the wheel of any car or truck since these vehicles will navigate on their own. This technology comes along with many positive and negative impacts upon the roads and the world that surrounds them. This could impact, employment for individuals who drive to earn income, accident rates, and the cost of owning and operating a vehicle.

Figure 5 clarifies the levels of SAE Automotive vehicle clarification. As displayed, you can see there is a huge jump in differentiating the difference between level 2 and level 3. Between the two levels this is stated as Automated driving system (“system”) monitors the driving environment. Level 5 is the ideal goal to be in a fully Automated vehicle by 2040. This will encompass all driving modes; execution of steering and acceleration/deceleration, monitoring of driving environment, fallback performance of dynamic driving task, and system capability (driving modes).

In class and in previous readings we have learned that Ethics is involved in every aspect of Engineering. The article “Here is a Terrible Idea: Robot Cars with Adjustable Ethics Settings” is a good example that shows off the great importance of ethics in engineering. It is about the future adoption of autonomous cars and the ethical dilemmas associated with them. Specifically, it talks about the infamous Trolley problem when applied to autonomous cars. The scenario presented by the article consists of a person driving her autonomous car and not realizing that she is about to collide with five people crossing a road. The car could then save the life of the five people by quickly swerving into another direction. However, there is another person there, and if the car swerves she would be impacted instead. The autonomous car is then in charge of making the decision of what is the right thing to do in this kind of situation. From a utilitarian’s point of view, the consequences of an act are the only thing that matters for it being right or wrong. The right act is the one that will yield the maximum sum of pleasure for all entities involved. Therefore, in the trolley problem applied to autonomous cars, for a utilitarian the right choice would be to swerve right and kill that one innocent person instead of the other five people. Although not presented in the article,

Google’s autonomous car had clocked up 1 million miles on public roads, and the researcher planned to do more road test in the future in order to expedite launch the Google’s car. (Protalinski, 2015) The technology of autonomous car is mature enough to use. In addition, the law for autonomous car has been already passed in serval states including Florida, Nevada, and Michigan. (Boeglin, 2015) It seems to be obviously that autonomous are coming into and bringing profound effect in our daily life. However, before greeting this revolutionary vehicle, there are several problems that need to be solved, such as ethical dilemma, liability and privacy problems. In this essay, which decision is moral in emergency, who will be responsible for an accident made by an autonomous car, and how much intimate information of owner can an autonomous car use will be discussed.

SAE International (formerly known as the Society of Automotive Engineers) in the U.S. has developed a carefully-formulated set of definitions of the various levels of automation, which are becoming well accepted by experts within the industry and government agencies. Full automation of vehicles is defined as “the full-time performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task under all roadway and environmental conditions that can be managed by a human driver.” In other words, fully autonomous vehicles do not require a human to monitor or intervene in any

Recently the Mercedes-Benz executive Christoph von Hugo said that the autonomous cars they are making in the future would save the life of the driver and passengers over the life of a pedestrian given those as the only two options. In this paper, I will describe Jeremy Bentham’s moral philosophy of utilitarianism and why he would be in support of this statement; I will also briefly explain Emanuel Kant’s moral theory and why he would be in support of this statement as well.

The autonomous vehicle is a vehicle that can drive itself without having human input. These vehicles are programmed with complex algorithms to mimic human behavior, but also operate on a level of consistency that humans have a hard time replicating. As we move into a new era of transportation, automotive vehicles are going to help change the way society operates. Why change a system that we have been using for over one hundred years? In the automobiles of today, we have to get in and manually give the car inputs. Since human error is natural, a lot can go wrong when you are moving a two ton chunk of metal at alarming speeds. That is where autonomous vehicles (AVs) help us. Over the years we have found the need to remove the human element