Xin He 7 months 12 days In the future all cars, buses and trucks will be driverless. On some recent debates about the ethics of self-driving cars, The Ethics of Automated Vehicles: Why Self-driving Cars Should not Swerve in Dilemma Cases, https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15352720/volvo-will-take-responsibility-if-its-self-driving-cars-crash/, https://rodneybrooks.com/unexpected-consequences-of-self-driving-cars/, https://rodneybrooks.com/edge-cases-for-self-driving-cars/, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/self-driving-cars-waymo-arizona-chandler-vandalism-tyre-slashing-rocks-a8681806.html, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/self-driving-car-crash-racial-bias-black-people-study-a8810031.html, https://newsroom.aaa.com/2019/03/americans-fear-self-driving-cars-survey, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/millions-professional-drivers-will-be-replaced-self-driving-vehicles-n817356, http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/10/is-the-self-driving-car-un-american.html, https://www.thedrive.com/article/18952/this-is-the-human-driving-manifesto, https://philpapers.org/archive/VOLPAA-2.pdf, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Suppose that a motorist drives over a child at dusk because of problems with his eyesight. Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, 29, 165197. However, all these measures will only affect this particular driver. Not many have any experience of self-driving vehicles, and no one has experience of their large-scale introduction into a traffic system. The ultimate vision experts are working towards is of completely driverless vehicles, both within industry, wider transport networks, and personal-use cars, that can be deployed and used anywhere and everywhere around the world. Loh, W., & Misselhorn, C. (2019). In the next five years most driverless technology will remain behind the scenes. However, like all large-scale handling of person-related information, the collection and processing of traffic information can give rise to considerable privacy intrusions (Zimmer, 2005). ), Autonomous driving. This means the final part of a journey for goods and services the point at which they are delivered to the consumer. Parents may wish to provide their children with transponders in order to ensure their safety. If such measures are not taken, or are not efficient enough, the result will be unemployment, with its accompanying social problems.Footnote 11 It should be noted that other branches of industry are expected to undergo a similar process at the same time. Springer. Law and Philosophy, 6, 167185. King, K. F. (2011). Should manual driving be (eventually) outlawed? As excellently explained by Davnall (2020), such situations are extremely rare. The ethics of crashes with self-driving cars: A roadmap, I. When human beings are like drunk robots: Driverless vehicles, ethics, and the future of transport. Frber, Berthold. Recalls to update old cars to the technical safety standards of new cars are, to our knowledge, not practised anywhere.Footnote 7 Software updates in old vehicles may become a difficult issue, in particular for vehicles that outlive their manufacturing company (Smith, 2014). This will not be the case in areas with a large shortage of drivers. A considerable number of people who cannot drive a car will be able to go on their own in a self-driving car (Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016, p. 1137). Only if they believe and Washington University Journal of Law and Policy, 50, 147169. The chances for pedestrians and others to move out of harms way are also smaller if the car is spinning and skidding. At least one company has left its self-driving test vehicles unmarked in order to avoid sabotage (Connor, 2016). In addition, ride-sharing can be tailored, based on personal information for instance from web browsing, which is used to find a suitable travel companion (Moor, 2016; Soteropoulos et al., 2019, p. 46). Vehicle-to-road-management communication systems can provide updated local information on traffic and accessibility. Nyholm, S., & Smids, J. This is a serious security problem that requires at least two types of responses. ), Autonomous driving. Science and Engineering Ethics, 26, 431449. 543574). For instance, driving on city roads and other roads with unprotected travellers, such as pedestrians and cyclists, will always be subject to a speedsafety trade-off (Flipse & Puylaert, 2018, p. 55). This will be a momentous technological transformation. Such information can be misused or hacked. Gruel, W., & Stanford, J. M. (2016). Currently, web browsing data on a persons movements in the virtual space of the internet is used to tailor a massive flow of advertisements (Vliz, 2019; Vold & Whittlestone, 2019). Over-reliance on the swift collision-avoiding reactions of self-driving vehicles can induce people to take dangerous actions, such as stepping out in front of a car, relying on its fast braking. Risk Analysis, 36(8), 15131517. Just like human drivers, self-driving vehicles can become involved in traffic situations where an accident cannot be avoided, and a fast reaction is needed in order to reduce its consequences as far as possible. Self-driving vehicles are steadily becoming a reality despite the many hurdles still to be overcome and they could change our world in some unexpected ways. (Ed. Driving in the dark: Designing autonomous vehicles for reducing light pollution. Parents may wish to allow children to go alone by a driverless car. Automated vehicles can be used for illegal transportation tasks, for instance smuggling and the delivery of drugs, stolen goods, and contraband. ),Report on data, privacy, and the individual in the digital age. Although the automotive industry and public traffic administrations are planning for automatized road traffic, its introduction will, at least in democracies, ultimately depend on how public attitudes will develop. New Jersey Attorney General, Division of Consumer Affairs, Remind Used Car-Buyers to Be Wary of Flood A future filled with driverless vehicles is an inevitability. In my opinion, though there are concomitant moral risks, the practical import for health of such a seismic shift will be positive on the whole. Critics of this trend suggest that machines should not be responsible for the potential loss of human life. Applying a reasonable driver standard to accidents caused by autonomous vehicles. (2020). Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, 23, 191320. A Rio Tinto mine in Western Australia, for example, is currently operating the largest autonomous fleet in the world. Springer. By 2023 it's likely their service will be available in other cities across China, as well as in California. Most But while proponents of self-driving vehicles insist they will make our roads safer, there are some who feel pedestrians and autonomous vehicles simply can't mix. It is not inconceivable that demands may arise to make transponders mandatory for certain types of vehicles (such as motorcycles), or for persons walking, cycling or horse-riding on particularly dangerous roads. But in order for driverless technology to become mainstream, much still needs to change. Such walks are an important part of the physical exercise performed by large parts of the population. Affordable travel opportunities to workplaces can make it possible for underprivileged people to escape poverty (Epting, 2019, p. 393). AVs can boost car and ride sharing schemes as they can cater to multiple persons on demand . We have studied the ethical literature on the topic, and reflected on the social and ethical implications of topics brought up in the technical and policy-oriented literature. However, it is also plausible that the total mileage will increase (ibid.). The traffic on such roads may potentially run at higher speed than the highest speed allowed on roads that are open to conventionally driven cars. As a result, driverless cabs are expected to become cheaper and which eventually may discourage car ownership. This can lead to measures that reduce the risks of conventional driving, such as alcohol interlocks, speed limiters, and advanced driver assistance technologies. Costly adaptations of vehicles can to a large part be dispensed with. This will increase their mobility, and it can potentially have positive effects on their well-being and social connectedness. Some of these safety features, such as crumple zones, safety cells, and airbags, reduce the severity of the injuries affecting drivers and passengers (crashworthiness). 10. A road management system will of course ensure the swift passage of emergency vehicles when other vehicles have to travel slowly, but will it also offer swift passage to those who can afford a first or business option for their travel? Consequently, households Philos. Citizen Inquiries-. Policy-makers will have to decide whether to leave this choice to the individual vehicle user (just as the same decision is left to individual drivers in the present system), or to regulate it in some way. Ethics of connected and automated vehicles: Recommendations on road safety, privacy, fairness, explainability and responsibility. On the problem of making autonomous vehicles conform to traffic law. The ability of emergency service vehicles to reach their destination as quickly as possible is often a matter of life or death. Tigard (2020) proposed that in cases when a technological system has failed, we can demand answers from the system itself and even hold AI to account by imposing sanctions, correcting undesirable behavioral patterns acquired, and generally seeing that the target of our response works to improve for the future. Although this may be possible as a purely intellectual venture, it is difficult to see how the emotional components of responsibility ascriptions could be established in relation to software. TRL is investigating the potential for driverless HGVs on motorways, including the idea of platooning vehicles. In the subsequent trial, the driver will be held (blame) responsible for the act. Why trolley problems matter for the ethics of automated vehicles. Kyriakidis, M., Happee, R., & de Winter, J. C. F. (2015). Springer. However, as with any new technology, there are also significant challenges and The latter option has severe disadvantages: swerving reduces the efficiency of braking, so that the collision will take place with a larger momentum. Con #1: Risk of hacking. Technical, legal and social aspects (pp. The introduction of a traffic management system that coordinates travel will make it easier than in the current system to arrange ride-sharing. Transportation, 45(1), 143158. The promise of driverless technology has long been enticing. As part of these endeavours, ethical and public policy aspects of the technology itself and of various scenarios for its introduction need to be explored (Palm & Hansson, 2006). Vehicles without passengers can be used for criminal and terrorist attacks, such as driving at high speed into a crowd, or carrying a bomb to a place where it will be detonated (instead of having it carried by a suicide bomber) (Joh, 2019, pp. Mcity puts driverless cars through their paces in an environment that mimics a real city, complete with crossing pedestrians (Credit: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images). In G. Meyer & S. Beiker (Eds. Our purpose is to broaden the discussion from a focus on the crash behaviour of vehicles to the many types of social change that the new technology can be involved in. It is much less clear how responsibilities will be assigned in near-automated driving, in which a human in the drivers seat is constantly prepared to take over control of the vehicle in the case of an emergency (Nyholm, 2018a, p. 1214). In conclusion, driverless cars are not ready to debut on major highways and roadways. Currently only available as a test service to the public in small defined areas, in the next two years there are plans to release the taxis on a greater and wider scale. In M. Maurer, J. C. Gerdes, B. Lenz, & H. Winner (Eds. A legal perspective on three misconceptions in vehicle automation. Instead, measures are needed in the traffic system. Just as in the existing traffic system, this will in practice often lead to trade-offs between safety and other objectives. Public attitudes to accidents involving autonomous vehicles will be important, perhaps decisive, for the introduction of such vehicles in regular traffic. At the Mcity Test Facility at the University of Michigan, experts are addressing this. Springer. Meaningful human control as reason-responsiveness: The case of dual-mode vehicles. Straub, J., McMillan, J., Yaniero, B., Schumacher, M., Almosalami, A., Boatey, K., & Hartman, J. And that's not the only challenge. Assessing the long-term effects of autonomous vehicles: A speculative approach. Vliz, C. (2019). For instance, suppose that a motorist who drives too fast kills a child crossing a road on its way to school. They can also cause annoyance and possibly risky behaviour by the drivers of conventional vehicles. Gurney, J. K. (2017). Goodall, N. J. The internet and privacy. In Sweden between 1975 and 2007, recycling of older vehicles was rewarded with a bonus. Division of Philosophy, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, The Swedish Transport Administration, Borlnge, Sweden, The Institute for Futures Studies, Stockholm, Sweden, Department of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Ume University, Ume, Sweden, Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, You can also search for this author in (2016). There will certainly be economic incentives to provide such services for those who can pay for them (Dietrich & Weisswange, 2019; Mladenovic & McPherson, 2016). Transport Reviews, 39(1), 2949. The task responsibility for these measures falls to decision-makers, such as public authorities. Gasser, T. M. (2015). The second option is to hold the artificial intelligence built into the vehicles responsible. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The need for professional drivers will gradually decrease, and many will lose their employments. On the other hand, strong negative reactions to driverless cars can be expected to develop in segments of the population. For further clarifications of the lack of realism of these deliberations, see Gasser (2015, p. 556), Goodall (2016), Hansson (2012, p. 44), Hern (2016), Himmelreich (2018), and Nyholm and Smids (2016). For some people, driving a motor vehicle is an important source of pride and self-fulfilment. Roy, A. The effects for people with disabilities would seem to be more unequivocally positive. Technical change, unemployment and labor skills. Technische, rechtliche und gesellschaftliche Aspekte (pp. The Independent, December 13. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/self-driving-cars-waymo-arizona-chandler-vandalism-tyre-slashing-rocks-a8681806.html. Furthermore, other studies indicate a less positive attitude (Edmonds, 2019). Driverless cars are poised to revolutionize the way we travel, with the potential to reduce accidents, improve traffic flow, and reduce emissions.