INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
With the introduction of self-driving vehicles, developers behind their decision-making AI have had to re-think some age-old ethical
dilemmas, specifically who should the car choose to save in the event of a crash.An article published by Nature: International Journal of
Science details the results of The Moral Machine experiment, which confronted over two million participants with a variety of hypothetical
moral dilemmas as faced by an autonomous vehicle, its passengers and nearby pedestrians.For instance, participants were presented with the
graphic shown below and asked which of the two choices would be preferable in the event of brake failure: the death of three elderly
pedestrians illegally crossing the road, or the death of the young family in the car.Through the recording of almost 40 million decisions
responses, no matter which country or demographic they came from, the strongest preferences were to spare human lives rather than pets, save
more lives versus fewer, and saving younger lives rather than the elderly (in that order).While this may seem obvious, the decision to
The ability to detect an animal rather than a human and judge the value of life accordingly can be relatively simple, but when it comes to
comparing the value of human life based on attributes such as age, gender, or social status, the line becomes rather blurry.For instance, if
2016, providing us with the most comprehensive poll of what people around the world think should happen in certain clear-cut situations, but
more, but much of this would either be impossible or unethical to determine in reality.The article cites the 2017 rules put in place by the
German Ethics Commission on Automated and Connected Driving as the only example of an official guideline on the issue, but the rules are at
humans in all circumstances, but the rules are unclear on when to sacrifice few to spare many, and they explicitly prohibit the distinction
of any personal feature such as age, gender or social status.With the release of these findings, we can hope that ethicists, developers and
manufacturers responsible for self-driving cars will have a better perspective on who to preference in these situations, but the moral
dilemmas are far from solved.3NT6XSEaTHqbETH6BLsNMN.jpeg#
