Moral code for self-driving cars [Solved]

[tascoast]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-04/r ... rs/6910606

While we await MX-15 (The line outside the MX Torrent Store grows ever longer as expectant fans wrap themselves in virtual blankets, marking out their place in the queue, but the mood is cheerful....) the link above offers some potential diversions.

[Gordon Cooper]

Perhaps test them on the Stuart Highway, south of Tennant Creek. Not too many pedestrians to hit there, except the Roos?

[lucky9]

I have a friend that hopes self-driving cars get here before he gets too old to drive safely.

[Pierre]

Perhaps test them on the Stuart Highway, south of Tennant Creek. Not too many pedestrians to hit there, except the Roos?

Volvo tests technology to prevent kangaroo collisions:
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-te ... klctf.html
The human cost of serious injuries and fatalities from animal collisions is incalculable.

[tascoast]

Perhaps test them on the Stuart Highway, south of Tennant Creek. Not too many pedestrians to hit there, except the Roos?

They once had an open speed limit up there but sadly, it's now regulated. Some years back I went Tennant Creek - Townsville, following a visit to Alice Springs. The last leg was the best part of three days of driving I think, on my own. I did recall seeing cattle and horses on the roads, particularly up the highway to Alice, making night driving pretty interesting.

[eugen-b]

This marketing talk about robot moral is an attempt to avoid controls and compliance. There is only one moral in business - make it costly to break the rules.

[tascoast]

Self-regulation seems to have followed free-market activity in places like the US and Australia, mining, big developments.....which reminds me of mining trucks that are sometimes operating autonomously now.


The moral dilemmas that will emerge, that we attempt to program hardware to somehow anticipate, seem to be getting ever more complex once autonomous vehicles become common on our residential streets though. The old train track switch ethical dilemma scenario becomes ever more complex on our streets.

[eugen-b]

What I mean is not to make the mistake to make the producer less responsible, because a robot is somewhat autonomous.
How to make a robot operate safely is another story for me. There some paralells to ethics, but I think what they would call robot ethics is a metaphor for ethics. Not because I'm asuming free will, but because I want to stress programmability.

[tascoast]

What I mean is not to make the mistake to make the producer less responsible, because a robot is somewhat autonomous.
How to make a robot operate safely is another story for me. There some paralells to ethics, but I think what they would call robot ethics is a metaphor for ethics. Not because I'm asuming free will, but because I want to stress programmability.

I think you are right in focusing upon the human decisions and choices guiding the automation, since the headline was potentially misleading I suspect, as is often the case in news. Somewhat related, I watched Ex Machina the other day, based loosely around the idea of a Turing test, and some more involved scenarios around artificial intelligence. No further spoilers though....


I agree with Pierre wholeheartedly though, that apart from the heavy toll on wildlife, outback road trains leaving a gruesome trail of kangaroo parts and blood on the road in some regions that can become commonplace to the frequent traveller or local. The risk to smaller vehicles and occupants is significant. Even in the southern states, things like wombats lurk on foggy nights. I sit on around 80km/h at dusk and only until the next roadhouse in the really remote parts to stop the night.

Edit...but to clarify, hitting a wombat is like suddenly hitting a small boulder or driving over a log. Wallabies, well the two I've hit came out of nowhere so to speak, bounding accross a road at night and again one morning. The night-time strike was somewhat startling, in lightly wooded dairy/grazing land. Luckily, I've never hit anything really large like a desert red kangaroo, another magnitude of beast altogether, capable of disembowelling with their hind legs.
]
Oh, and I regularly dodge possums here at night, brushtails, although the Kiwis might question my logic, .....understandably.

Upon reflection, we probably need collision avoidance systems here more than autonomous vehicles in many places.

....camel numbers are down thankfully.....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_feral_camel

[eugen-b]

Ok, now read the article. It is about moral of the buyers of autonomous vehicles. This could be solves by letting the buyer choose between two modes of operation - selfish and altruistic.
Electric vehicles are also very quiet and therefore even more dangerous for wildlife and pedestrians. Fake motor sound doesn't work well yet.
Maybe an ultrasonic loudspeaker could be a solution for animals.