In A Deadly Crash, Who Should A Driverless Car Kill — Or Save?

[chubber]

People can’t make up their moral minds about driverless cars.

In a series of surveys published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers asked people what they believe a driverless car ought to do in the following scenario: A group of pedestrians are crossing the street, and the only way the car can avoid hitting them is by swerving off the road, which would kill the passengers inside.

The participants generally agreed that the cars should be programmed to sacrifice their passengers if doing so would save many other people.

This, broadly speaking, is a utilitarian kind of answer — one aimed at preserving the greatest possible number of lives. But there’s one problem: The people in the survey also said they wouldn’t want to ride in these cars themselves.

It would be OK for others to buy them, the participants said, but they personally would not.

Discuss

 

[kirsten]

I think I could be persuaded to buy the car anyway given that overall, self-driving cars would make driving way, way, way safer. I think there will be laws ensuring that all cars are programmed to cause minimal damage to human lives, regardless of whether its the passengers or others.

It is scary and interesting to think of the downsides of them, even though I think they'd be an improvement overall. Maybe when accidents do happen, they'll be much worse, like airplane crashes. Or people could hack them and make them go rogue...