The development of driverless technology has brought all manner of sticky ethical questions with it. For starters, who controls the radio? ‘Cos if the robot thinks we’re gonna be listening to Kraftwerk on repeat, it can go straight to hell. But more importantly, if the car needs to make a lifesaving choice between its passengers and pedestrians, who does it choose?
It’s a dicey question to begin with, let alone one that we, humanity, could confidently give an answer to at this stage, unless you’re Mercedes Benz, ‘cos they say they’ll protect the driver every time. In an interview with Car and Driver, the company’s manager of driver assistance systems, Christoph von Hugo, said that if one of their cars was faced with a situation in which only one life could be saved, it would favour the driver.
And sure, its gotta choose someone over the other, so why not the driver? The issue is the situational cues that the technology would not be able to take into account. Like what if the driver was a raging white supremacist or wearing Crocs?
As horrible as it sounds to confidently choose one life over another based purely on whether they’re in the car or a pedestrian, von Hugo’s reasoning isn’t exactly wrong. “If you know you can save at least one person, at least save that one. Save the one in the car,” he said. “If all you know for sure is that one death can be prevented, then that’s your first priority.” It’s about certainty.
According to a study published in the journal Science, they probably made the right decision. After surveying a little under 2000 people, they found the majority reckon an autonomous vehicle should always choose to cause the least amount of fatalities, but interestingly, most also said they would only buy the one that put their lives first.
The move makes Mercedes the first in the industry to openly discuss the issue, while others have chosen to stay tight-lipped. To be fair, the more prevalent driverless vehicles become, the less accidents are likely to occur, but when they do, you’ll probs wanna own a Merc.
Source: Business Insider.
Photo: Futurama.
