People say that one day, perhaps in the not-so-distant future, they’d like to be passengers in self-driving cars that are mindful machines doing their best for the common good.
Merge politely. Watch for pedestrians in the crosswalk. Keep a safe space.
A new research study, however, indicates that what people really want to ride in is an autonomous vehicle that puts its passengers first. If its machine brain has to choose between slamming into a wall or running someone over, well, sorry, pedestrian.
In this week’s Science magazine, a group of computer scientists and psychologists explain how they conducted six online surveys of United States residents last year between June and November that asked people how they believed autonomous vehicles should behave. The researchers found that respondents generally thought self-driving cars should be programmed to make decisions for the greatest good.
Sort of. Through a series of quizzes that present unpalatable options that amount to saving or sacrificing yourself — and the lives of fellow passengers who may be family members — to spare others, the researchers, not surprisingly, found that people would rather stay alive.
This particular dilemma of robotic morality has long been chewed on in science fiction books and movies. But in recent years it has become a serious question for researchers working on autonomous vehicles who must, in essence, program moral decisions into a machine.
As autonomous vehicles edge closer to reality, it has also become a philosophical question with business implications. Should manufacturers create vehicles with various degrees of morality programmed into them, depending on what a consumer wants? Should the government mandate that all self-driving cars share the same value of protecting the greatest good, even if that’s not so good for a car’s passengers?
And what exactly is the greatest good?
“Is it acceptable for an A.V. (autonomous vehicle) to avoid a motorcycle by swerving into a wall, considering that the probability of survival is greater for the passenger of the A.V., than for the rider of the motorcycle? Should A.V.s take the ages of the passengers and pedestrians into account?” wrote Jean-François Bonnefon, of the Toulouse School of Economics in France; Azim Shariff, of the University of Oregon; and Iyad Rahwan, of the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the heart of this discussion is the “trolley problem.” First introduced in 1967 by Philippa Foot, a British philosopher, the trolley problem is a simple if unpleasant ethical thought puzzle.
Imagine a runaway trolley is barreling toward five workmen on the tracks. Their lives can be saved by a lever that would switch the trolley to another line. But there is one worker on those tracks as well.
What is the correct thing to do?
Read more of the original article in The New York Times.
