This is sort of fun to think about, but I don’t think the actual software will look anything like a trolley-problem solver. Given a choice between swerving and hitting A, or hitting B, I predict its actual answer will be “never swerve” and all the interesting details about what A and B are will be ignored. And that will be fine, because cars almost never get forced into positions where they can choose what to crash into but can’t avoid crashing entirely, especially not when they have superhuman reflexes, and manufacturers can justify it by saying that braking works slightly better when not swerving at the same time.
There’s an actual trolley problem—a very trivial one—hidden in it as well, though. Do you put your engineering resources into resolving swerve vs not swerve, or do you put that into better avoiding those situations altogether?
Of course, the answer is the latter.
This is also the issue with classical trolley problems. In the trolley problem as stated, subject’s brainfart is resulting in an extra death. Of course a fat man won’t stop a trolley! (It’s pretty easy to state such problems better, but you won’t generate much discussion that way)
This is sort of fun to think about, but I don’t think the actual software will look anything like a trolley-problem solver. Given a choice between swerving and hitting A, or hitting B, I predict its actual answer will be “never swerve” and all the interesting details about what A and B are will be ignored. And that will be fine, because cars almost never get forced into positions where they can choose what to crash into but can’t avoid crashing entirely, especially not when they have superhuman reflexes, and manufacturers can justify it by saying that braking works slightly better when not swerving at the same time.
Yeah.
There’s an actual trolley problem—a very trivial one—hidden in it as well, though. Do you put your engineering resources into resolving swerve vs not swerve, or do you put that into better avoiding those situations altogether?
Of course, the answer is the latter.
This is also the issue with classical trolley problems. In the trolley problem as stated, subject’s brainfart is resulting in an extra death. Of course a fat man won’t stop a trolley! (It’s pretty easy to state such problems better, but you won’t generate much discussion that way)
More importantly, if it thinks it has a choice between hitting A and B, it’s likely a bug, and it’s better off not swerving.