The ethics of crashes with self‐driving cars: A roadmap, I

Nyholm, Sven

doi:10.1111/phc3.12507

Cited by 75 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…However, we want to stress that responses to simplified dilemma situations should not be the basis for legal or ethical regulations. Furthermore, in agreement with Keeling (2017) and Nyholm (2018a), we believe empirical research alone cannot answer the ethical question of how self-driving cars should be programmed to behave. Nevertheless, we believe the results provide insights into the public's preferences regarding the decision making of self-driving cars and potential conflicts that may arise.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Moral Judgements on the Actions of Self-driving Cars and Human Drivers in Dilemma Situations from Different Perspectives

Kallioinen¹,

Pershina²,

Zeiser³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Self-driving cars have the potential to greatly improve public safety. However, their introduction onto public roads must overcome both ethical and technical challenges. To further understand the ethical issues of introducing self-driving cars, we conducted two moral judgement studies investigating potential differences in the moral norms applied to human drivers and self-driving cars. In the experiments, participants made judgements on a series of dilemma situations involving human drivers or self-driving cars. We manipulated which perspective situations were presented from in order to ascertain the effect of perspective on moral judgements. Two main findings were apparent from the results of the experiments. First, human drivers and self-driving cars were largely judged similarly. However, there was a stronger tendency to prefer self-driving cars to act in ways to minimize harm, compared to human drivers. Second, there was an indication that perspective influences judgements in some situations. Specifically, when considering situations from the perspective of a pedestrian, people preferred actions that would endanger car occupants instead of themselves. However, they did not show such a self-preservation tendency when the alternative was to endanger other pedestrians to save themselves. This effect was more prevalent for judgements on human drivers than self-driving cars. Overall, the results extend and agree with previous research, again contradicting existing ethical guidelines for self-driving car decision making and highlighting the difficulties with adapting public opinion to decision making algorithms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Moral Judgements on the Actions of Self-driving Cars and Human Drivers in Dilemma Situations from Different Perspectives

Kallioinen¹,

Pershina²,

Zeiser³

et al. 2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…risks of harm, on one side, versus actual harms, on the other). (Nyholm andSmids 2016: 1286) Once the distinction between risky and non-risky cases is made precise, it is clear that the categorical difference described here is insufficient to render trolley cases of little or no relevance to the moral design problem. Take the orthodox model of decision-making under risk (Luce and Raiffa 1957;Savage 1972).…”

Section: The Moral Difference Argumentmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…But in real-world collisions one action might produce several different outcomes, and the AV at best has a probability distribution over these outcomes. In short, AV collisions involve risk (Himmelreich 2018: 676-677;Nyholm andSmids 2016: 1286). The second step holds that the non-normative difference between these cases gives rise to a normative difference.…”

Section: The Moral Difference Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Trolley Problems Matter for the Ethics of Automated Vehicles

Keeling

2019

Sci Eng Ethics

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This paper argues against the view that trolley cases are of little or no relevance to the ethics of automated vehicles. Four arguments for this view are outlined and rejected: the Not Going to Happen Argument, the Moral Difference Argument, the Impossible Deliberation Argument and the Wrong Question Argument. In making clear where these arguments go wrong, a positive account is developed of how trolley cases can inform the ethics of automated vehicles.

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“…In this sense, the term opacity is understood as the lighter version of so-called black-box problem (i.e., the lack of understanding of algorithmic functioning and interpretation of its results (Mittelstadt et al, 2016;Finn, 2019)). Sometimes, the opacity is mentioned alongside the transparency (Zerilli et al, 2019;Shin & Park, 2019), accountability (Cath, 2018;Espeland & Young, 2019), privacy, equity and inequality (Nyholm, 2018;Shadbolt et al, 2019;Hagendorff & Wezel, 2019), intepretability (Binns, 2018), inscrutability (Desai & Kroll, 2017;Kroll, 2018). In most cases, the mention of algorithmic opacity involves decision-making, choices, consensus and agreements in the course of action and notions of community and involvement in its practice.…”

Section: Opacity: Its Nature and Close Neighborsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Algorithmic Opacity and Moral Certainty

Litvinski¹

2020

Preprint

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In modern society, algorithms play an important role in social and cultural realms, in political and economic spheres. In spite of algorithmic pervasiveness in many areas and wide diffusion in digital life, algorithmic opacity is still poorly understood compared to other ethical issues (e.g., fairness, accountability, and transparency). In this essay, we try to elucidate the relation between algorithmic opacity and moral certainty from the individualistic standpoint and through the virtue ethic perspective. For doing so, we follow hermeneutic tradition and rely on interpretation of recent authors and impactful papers. We summarize our argument as follows: if the algorithm is understood as the combination of rules and numbers we create for simplifying our lives and sharing with others, then our present activities and future actions as imagined, realized or missed, ascertain if algorithmic opacity become a moral issue or problem for us and others. Among the implications, we emphasize that sometime dormant and hard to anticipate, algorithmic opacity becomes an apparent during executions, deployments and prolonged uses of algorithmic systems. Moreover, our lived experience and disharmony between our unrealized expectations and unanticipated algorithmic behavior may lead to moral issues and problems for us and others. Overall, algorithmic opacity may constantly evade the formalization efforts (e.g., outlining as guidelines, principles) or quantification exercises (e.g., assigning numerical values to symbols or signs), both of which are essentially social practices.

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The ethics of crashes with self‐driving cars: A roadmap, I

Cited by 75 publications

References 29 publications

Moral Judgements on the Actions of Self-driving Cars and Human Drivers in Dilemma Situations from Different Perspectives

Moral Judgements on the Actions of Self-driving Cars and Human Drivers in Dilemma Situations from Different Perspectives

Why Trolley Problems Matter for the Ethics of Automated Vehicles

On Algorithmic Opacity and Moral Certainty

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