# You or Them



## KmH (Jun 27, 2016)

You're in a driverless car with a loved one. The driverless car is zipping down a one-way, single-lane road. There is  a barricade to the left and a wall to the right.

Just ahead, pedestrians are hurrying from right to left across a crosswalk even though it's flashing a red *DO NOT CROSS* signal. If the driverless car does not swerve towards the wall on the right, hitting the pedestrians will be unavoidable.

What should happen next? Should the vehicle swerve into the wall and maybe sacrifice its passengers to avoid the pedestrians, or should it protect its passengers at all costs and mow down the pedestrians?

The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles | Science


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

Are the pedestrians making my car payments?


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## SquarePeg (Jun 27, 2016)

If you're in a car you have a better chance with the air bags and seat belts and reinforced frame vs. a wall than those pedestrians have vs. a car.  Now if that pedestrian happens to be a certain ex husband, all bets are off...


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

SquarePeg said:


> If you're in a car you have a better chance with the air bags and seat belts and reinforced frame vs. a wall than those pedestrians have vs. a car.  Now if that pedestrian happens to be a certain ex husband, all bets are off...




So, for the onboard computer to determine if it is a certain ex-husband, a DNA test would be in order....

Which.. would require a blood sample....

So... Hmm...


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## Designer (Jun 27, 2016)

Brakes?


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

Designer said:


> Brakes?



So the computer slams on those, car flips over on top of pedestrians, everybody dies.

Perfect.  See, no playing favorites there.


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## Ysarex (Jun 27, 2016)

This is strictly an insurance question.

Joe


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

Ysarex said:


> This is strictly an insurance question.
> 
> Joe



Which raises an interesting question, if the car self drives will it self insure as well?


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## otherprof (Jun 27, 2016)

SquarePeg said:


> If you're in a car you have a better chance with the air bags and seat belts and reinforced frame vs. a wall than those pedestrians have vs. a car.  Now if that pedestrian happens to be a certain ex husband, all bets are off...


You remind me of a classic Jaguar I was driving behind on Long Island, NY. The license plate read "WAS HIS"  One of the few vanity plates I thought it was worth paying for.


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## tirediron (Jun 27, 2016)

Never, ever yield the right-of-way.


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## Netskimmer (Jun 27, 2016)

I say mow them down. I shouldn't have to risk my life because they couldn't be bothered to wait their turn. I would say the same thing if I was in the cross-walk. Other people should have to risk death because I wasn't paying attention or decided it was worth risking my life to shave a few minutes off my journey to wherever.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

Netskimmer said:


> I say mow them down. I shouldn't have to risk my life because they couldn't be bothered to wait their turn. I would say the same thing if I was in the cross-walk. Other people should have to risk death because I wasn't paying attention or decided it was worth risking my life to shave a few minutes off my journey to wherever.



Sounds reasonable to me.  I am real;y wondering about the whole insurance thing too - I mean since I'm not the one driving the car why should my rates go up because of someone else's crappy programming skills?


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## zombiesniper (Jun 27, 2016)

Pedestrians made the choice to be a road pizza, who am I to disagree.


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## Netskimmer (Jun 27, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> Netskimmer said:
> 
> 
> > I say mow them down. I shouldn't have to risk my life because they couldn't be bothered to wait their turn. I would say the same thing if I was in the cross-walk. Other people should have to risk death because I wasn't paying attention or decided it was worth risking my life to shave a few minutes off my journey to wherever.
> ...



I don't think your insurance should go up even if you WERE driving the car. You shouldn't be held accountable (financially or legally) for an accident you didn't cause and couldn't avoid. (regardless of what choice you made, the result will be a totaled car and serious injury and/or death of either the cars occupants or the pedestrians, possibly both)


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## weepete (Jun 27, 2016)

It's moot. Because either the car is aware of the pedestrians and stops or it doesn't see them and doesn't stop.


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## KmH (Jun 27, 2016)

robbins.photo said:


> Are the pedestrians making my car payments?


Being a driverless car it's not likely you own the car. It's more likely you pay  a monthly fee for use driverless cars.

The driverless car cannot stop in time by applying the brakes.
The only options are to swerve and hit the wall, or hit one or more pedestrians.

The point is there are moral considerations that have not before needed to be considered.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 27, 2016)

KmH said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Are the pedestrians making my car payments?
> ...



So the car should send the company an email asking them what it should do, and mow down the pedestrians while waiting for a response.  I'm ok with that.


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## table1349 (Jun 27, 2016)

I live in hicksville and we got it figured out here.  This works good too.


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## Netskimmer (Jun 27, 2016)

KmH said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Are the pedestrians making my car payments?
> ...



The optimal course of action would be for the vehicle calculate the to risk to human life with all available options and choose the option that will result in the lowest probability of loss of human life or injury. There are three problems with this:
1. You have to design a car "smart" enough to make such a decision reliably and accurately.
2. By having the car make this decision you open the company and the programmers up to liability should the car make the "wrong" choice.
3. People aren't going to be comfortable getting into one of these cars knowing it may decide that their injury or death may be the lesser of two evils and allow them to be killed or injured, even if the car's decision was correct.

In reality, they would probably just program the car to strictly obey all traffic laws and drive as defensibly as possible. That way, if it does get into an accident, it will be unlikely to be the cars fault. So they will be covered both legally and morally.


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## b_twill (Jun 30, 2016)

I would want the car to find that correctly positioned vegetable cart in front of the people, turn on the jets and do it's best Dukes of Hazard impression flying over the people and land perfectly on the other side.


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## TheLibrarian (Jun 30, 2016)

People forcing my car into a brick wall is why I will never have or ride in a driverless car.


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## b_twill (Jun 30, 2016)

Not looking good for the drivers...
A Tesla Fatality and the Future of Self-Driving Cars


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## KmH (Jul 17, 2016)

People are expecting more of Tesla's Auto-Pilot than it is designed to do - RTFM.

In other words there is no cure for stupid people.


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## table1349 (Jul 17, 2016)

KmH said:


> People are expecting more of Tesla's Auto-Pilot than it is designed to do - RTFM.
> 
> In other words there is no cure for stupid people.


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