Should your robot driver kill you to save a child’s life?

[Egomaniacal1]

I would wager that if you could hypothetically set this scenario up for 100 ppl that the majority would still mow the kid down. Thats not to say we wouldn't try to avoid the human in the street but that self-preservation isn't something we easily override. Everytime i go out in my car i want to come back home alive and in one piece. I'd feel remorseful for hitting any human for the loss of life but i wouldn't feel guilt over it so i'm in favor of the car keeping passengers as safe as possible for those reasons.

As far as the programming goes what it leads to is a discussion of true A.I. emphasis on Intelligence. Somewhere far into the future if true A.I. is possible to be achieved, autonomous cars will do tons of calculations on the fly and in the blink of an eye in order to assess the situation and keep all living things as safe as possible. So maybe it will use Google maps or some other service to know you're coming up on a single lane, and as soon as you hit the single lane road it automatically knows to slow your speed way down to a predetermined level to be able to stop in time. To go even deeper, it might also take into account factors such as condition of the braking system, weather conditions, etc...

 

[The Devil's Advocate]

https://theconversation.com/should-your-robot-driver-kill-you-to-save-a-childs-life-29926

should be left up to the buyer of the car


is the robot gonna recognize who's in the car, and where they sit, each time we load up??

then i should have a ranking in the fam of order of importance


why you might say that's cruel... what if you have 3 kids?? and one is in the front 10 years old and one in the back middle, 3 years old... the 16 year old is driving, i'm in the back taking care of the baby

now add in a wife and randomize that at any point in the trip... the robot is gonna have to keep up with that, and adjust all accidents/driving to account for that... no way they could program that in at the factory... it'd have to come from home

 

[BaldingSoHard]

I would program the car to do what gives both parties the best chance of living. With that said, I have a hard time trying to grasp how the car would know it is a "child" rather than any other human. What if its a midget? What if the kid has a terminal illness? Do those make a difference?

Id err on the side of keeping the driver safe because otherwise there could be too many anomalies that cause crashes. What if the car misread a fallen tree branch as a human? Plus..honestly..who's to say someone's life is more or less valuable than another's life in that situation? If the adult is a young mother of 3 then does she deserve to die more than a random kid?

I'm with this.

I'd say the car should be programmed to do everything within it's normal operations to avoid collision, aka slam on the brakes as hard as possible and hope it's enough to save the person in the road. If not, .

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

the robot should do as the driver would have wanted
you can have the driver select a hierarchical/algorithmic set of rules to dictate action for these situations when buying the car

So then are you going to have to put in algorithms to take into account that some other cars on the road will opt to potentially crash into you instead of hitting the object in the road?

I think itd be safer if all cars had the same or a very very small variance in algorithmic decision making.

 

[tmonster]

So then are you going to have to put in algorithms to take into account that some other cars on the road will opt to potentially crash into you instead of hitting the object in the road?

I think itd be safer if all cars had the same or a very very small variance in algorithmic decision making.

you can't worry about what other cars will do, your car will simply take defensive evasive maneuvers per usual protocol
there are things that just will remain outside of our control , like a child jumping into traffic
if a driver does not want to be altruistic in that situation I understand


slightly related
I understand that, currently, self driving cars are having a lot of technical issues with road and weather condition variations

 

[the cac mamba]

lets be honest, isnt this overthinking it?

if this fukkin robot isnt gonna protect me over anyone in my external surroundings, then im not buying the product . no one wants a kid to die; i also dont want the robot deciding it for me

if i'm driving at a reasonable speed, and a kid runs out in the road for being stupid, and its me or the kid...im choosing me . that might sound cruel but we're talking split second, self preservation. so i expect my robot to act accordingly

 

[the cac mamba]

should be left up to the buyer of the car


is the robot gonna recognize who's in the car, and where they sit, each time we load up??

then i should have a ranking in the fam of order of importance


why you might say that's cruel... what if you have 3 kids?? and one is in the front 10 years old and one in the back middle, 3 years old... the 16 year old is driving, i'm in the back taking care of the baby

great point. at the end of the day, the car has to protect its occupants

 

[Type Username Here]

People constantly miss the points about thought experiments in the coli. Its usually why I post them elsewhere.

It's about the thought process. How is it overthinking?

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

you can't worry about what other cars will do, your car will simply take defensive evasive maneuvers per usual protocol
there are things that just will remain outside of our control , like a child jumping into traffic
if a driver does not want to be altruistic in that situation I understand


slightly related
I understand that, currently, self driving cars are having a lot of technical issues with road and weather condition variations

You have to worry about what other cars are going to do even when driving now. If there is no "usual protocol" then that is a problem and could result in more accidents since there is more variance. Accidents often happen now because drivers break usual protocol on the roads.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

this happened in irobot, robot saves will smith from drowning instead of a kid because he had a higher probability of surviving/being saved

 

[Type Username Here]

this happened in irobot, robot saves will smith from drowning instead of a kid because he had a higher probability of surviving/being saved

Article mentions that. They key question is how would you handle the problem at hand , and what is the logic behind your position.

It's a question about thinking.

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

People constantly miss the points about thought experiments in the coli. Its usually why I post them elsewhere.

It's about the thought process. How is it overthinking?

True. I dont quite understand how one can over-think a thought experiment.

 

[LordTaskForce]

True. I dont quite understand how one can over-think a thought experiment.

its just not a very good thought experiment

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

its just not a very good thought experiment

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

Article mentions that. They key question is how would you handle the problem at hand , and what is the logic behind your position.

It's a question about thinking.

its a tough one indeed. i think each life has equal value, but then I think to myself, if they were really old, then a child's life would be of higher priority, and I think even the older person would agree