It’s nothing more than a dune buggy on a cordoned-off street, but it’s headed for trouble.
A jumble of sawhorses and traffic cones simulates a road crew working over a manhole, and the driverless car must decide: obey the law against crossing a double-yellow line, or break the law and spare the crew. It splits the difference, veering at the last moment and nearly colliding with the cones.
On a recent day, Gerdes met separately at his lab with the CEOs of General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. That came about a week after he hosted a workshop on driverless ethics for 90 engineers and researchers, including from electric carmaker Tesla Motors and tech giant Google, which has pledged to put out a robot car as soon as 2017. This year, Tesla will introduce an autopilot feature.
GM will debut a 2017 Cadillac that drives hands-free. Ford CEO Mark Fields says driverless cars will arrive by 2020.
Gerdes’ message: not so fast.
“We need to take a step back and say, ‘Wait a minute, is that what we should be programming the car to think about? Is that even the right question to ask?’ “ Gerdes said. “We need to think about traffic codes reflecting actual behaviour to avoid putting the programmer in a situation of deciding what is safe versus what is legal.”
Moral choice
He soon came to see both its significance and its painful complexity. For example, when an accident is unavoidable, should a driverless car be programmed to aim for the smallest object to protect its occupant? What if that object turns out to be a baby stroller? If a car must choose between hitting a group of pedestrians and risking the life of its occupant, what is the moral choice? Does it owe its occupant more than it owes others?
When human drivers face impossible dilemmas, choices are made in the heat of the moment and can be forgiven. But if a machine can be programmed to make the choice, what should it be?
“It’s important to think about not just how these cars will drive themselves, but what’s the experience of being in them and how do they interact,” Gerdes said. “The technology and the human really should be inseparable.”
good to see someone talking sense! and who is not making decisions /creating press coverage based on upping their future profits
ALasdair