"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
The Robot Car of Tomorrow May Just Be Programmed to Hit You
Suppose that an autonomous car is faced with a terrible decision to crash into one of two objects. It could swerve to the left and hit a Volvo sport utility vehicle (SUV), or it could swerve to the right and hit a Mini Cooper. If you were programming the car to minimize harm to others–a sensible goal–which way would you instruct it go in this scenario?
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It is ethically unacceptable for the software designer to allow the resulting program to select an intentional collision decision rather than pruning it.
If a collision is truly unavoidable, the only choice for the automaton to make is no choice. Stay in the current lane of traffic, apply the brakes, and minimize damage to the passengers in its cabin.
But if either other car is also machine-piloted, the situation changes. The center car can broadcast an urgent warning and request for assistance. This communication can take place many times faster than human reaction time. The other pilot programs can plot a safe way to provide the center car with an accident-avoidance path, as an alternative to minimizing the damage from an unavoidable collision.
From the human perspective, when the giant pipe hits the road in front of the center car, several different cars swerve simultaneously, like schooling fish around a dolphin mouth. Traffic behind the obstacle parts and moves around it, slowing immediately to a speed safer for the new condition of the roadway.
But without that new information from other machine pilots, the pilot has no choice but to accept the inevitability of a wreck, and simply minimize the damage to itself without trying to dump it on someone else.
In reality, the hypothetical is not going to happen. If you are allowing your AI to make an impossible choice with all bad outcomes, you haven't done your job as a programmer. Part of your piloting software should always be evaluating safe contingency paths. And that means not cutting off your escape options by driving between two human-piloted cars in the first place. I even do this as a human driver. I try to be aware at all times of which direction I can swerve if I need to. Most of the time, it's to the right, onto the hard shoulder. If I don't have multiple possible travel paths, it's time to slow down and try to open my options back up.
So no, the robot car of the future will not be programmed to hit you. It will be programmed to treat you like a dangerous maniac that is actively trying to maneuver it into assuming fault for an accident. If you match your speed to it, it will change its own speed to get away from you.
Just now I posted a rant at another site over Yahoo's attempts at "big brotherism" (and my distaste for that entire collectivist robotic phenomenon) -- overriding my links with "drops" that have been programed with their recent formatting: "we-know-what-you're-trying-to-say-better-than-you-know-what-you're-trying-to-say". My kids accuse me of just being old, senile, and resistant to change. I accuse them of robotic collectivism. Somehow I think we're both (all -- I've got 7 kids) correct.
Collectivists (particularly state costumed and dangerously armed DOT and Highway Patrol types) incessantly chant slogans: "Seatbelts-Save-Lives!" etc. Their mission is to pull truckers over (most of whom know more about highway safety than any or all of them individually or collectively will ever know) for, of all stupid things, "safety checks". Of course parasites are not the least concerned they're taking up an hour or more of your precious drive time -- their hourly pay from the monopoly upon violence that employs them is quite arresting (pun intended). "Police Presence" is their byline ("we're watching you!"). It is important to them that their flashing lights present a warning to all onlookers -- along with their swagger. They didn't teach the swagger when I went through State Patrol Academy in Virginia in the 50's (as a condition of receiving an early discharge from the military).
As far as "seatbelts-save-lives" goes, the only way by which a seat belt can save your life is if you're slamming into something or somebody. If you plan on that, I recommend them. What is going to save your life is knowing what's going on 6 or 8 car lengths ahead and avoiding the accidents unfolding out front of you.
But, like in the article, one might retort: "...b...but what about the guy who plows into you?"; to which I respond: "if you're not professional enough to have seen that coming, you're one who should definitely wear a seat belt!"
Sam
I like that Sam. Seven to eight cars ahead. I would venture two to three cars behind is that is managable, the of course there are those side roads, but your eyes should have noted them a long way back. I do hope your eyes and ears are far better than Mine, I am one of those who needs seat belts and a knife to cut the belt to get out.
I like that Sam. Seven to eight cars ahead. I would venture two to three cars behind is that is managable, the of course there are those side roads, but your eyes should have noted them a long way back. I do hope your eyes and ears are far better than Mine, I am one of those who needs seat belts and a knife to cut the belt to get out.