Should driverless cars kill their own passengers to save a pedestrian?

[ignoramus]

No amount of tech will distinguish a kid on the road from a prankster with a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber.
Hence why it won't ever kill the occupants to save "something" on the road.

Maybe the Bieber thing was a bad example but you know what I mean.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]
This is not about "The pedestrian should not be there", that is a moot point, the pedestrian is there, what now?[...]

The same thing that happens when an idiot steps out in front of a speeding car, driven by a human - he dies. Unless of course the human driver manages to somehow swerve and hit other cars, leading to way more casualties. Human instincts are the last thing I'd want to rely on in an emergency.

[...]
Yes, human error may be responsible for a lot of shit, but computers aren't infallible either.

I'm sorry, but that's just idiotic. Computer errors are orders of magnitude less common than human error - even now and the computers are continuously improving, while humans are not (in fact - we're getting worse, thanks to all the modern distractions, like phones and drugs) . You don't believe me? Then try setting up an experiment where you perform the same task as a computer - or just play speed-chess against one. You'll see who's more likely to make a mistake, especially when the time-frames of fractions of seconds are involved

Self-driving car would be the best thing that could happen to transportation, although of course people, who fetishize cars and are unfamiliar with probabilities will undoubtedly make a big fuss about it - as is always the case with every improvement. People - like my grandfather - used to oppose indoor plumbing as well...

[abaris]

I'm sorry, but that's just idiotic. Computer errors are orders of magnitude less common than human error - even now and the computers are continuously improving, while humans are not.

Ah, so I take it, you would be perfectly comfortable in a pilotless plane. There's absolutely no margin of error.

[Edwardo Piet]

@ the OP :

Neither option is preferable, both involve unspecified degrees of significant suffering.

[IATIA]

Ah, so I take it, you would be perfectly comfortable in a pilotless plane. There's absolutely no margin of error.

That's right! What could possibly go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong

[ignoramus]

Don't all commercial planes fly on autopilot 95% of the time.
Plane deaths are multitudes less than cars. And then I would also suggest that human error caused the vast majority of them. I just think the driverless cars are like the electric cars of the 80's. The point was proven but the world just isn't ready. The irony is electric cars will never be the norm with fuelcell coming on, so it's a matter of too little too late.
Same with driverless cars. By the time we perfect the technology, we'll be transporting to work! Ala startrek.

[Aroura]

My understanding is that the cars will have manual override.  At the same time that Idisgree they are idiotic, I agree that this is not some moral issue.  Like the train track dilema.  But this one fails to give me much of a dilema.  The car will do what it is programmed to do, which will be to try and avoid killing anyone.  And the fact is, it will probably do a better job of it than a human.

I don't see how human drivers are actually better than a computer, TBH.  The computer won't be tempted to text while driving, or drive after drinking, or get distracted by the screaming toddler in the backseat,or the bee that just flew in the open window, or the hot coffee it just spilled in it's lap.  It will not panic and hit the accelerator instead of the break. It will never drive while tired because it must get to work even though the baby kept it up til 4am.   Etc. You get my point.

I'm not 100% for them yet, but I do not fear them just because they don't have a human brain.

[Homeless Nutter]

Ah, so I take it, you would be perfectly comfortable in a pilotless plane. There's absolutely no margin of error.

I would be infinitely more comfortable in a pilotless plane, if the alternative was the plane being piloted by me, or any other idiot, who got their license, by completing 20hrs course and some multiple choice test.

Humans are crap at driving. Pilots are the selected best and they spend years before they're allowed to fly. And I'm sure as soon as technology allows it - we'll have planes taking off and landing automatically as well, with pilots being only a back-up.

[IATIA]

I would be infinitely more comfortable in a pilotless plane ...

I was watching one of those plane disasters documentaries and these pilots were talking about a crash on takeoff that had occurred because the other pilots were talking to the stewardess rather than paying attention to flying and forgot to set the flaps. As they were talking about these other pilots, they forgot to set the flaps and crashed on takeoff.

[SteelCurtain]

The car will be programmed to do one thing in constant bearing, decreasing range. Minimize impact velocity. Swerving would take too many other things into account, including loss of control of the vehicle. They will not have these types of death decision matrices in the code. That is a PR nightmare.

The real question for the pilotless plane or driverless car scenario is if the number of crashes decreases significantly enough, will the public tolerate inescapable scenarios?

In other words, if there is a 50% decrease in motor vehicle deaths every year, and a black ice 10 car pileup happens with 3 deaths because of driverless cars, will the company get hammered with the civil suits? My guess is yes, and that would mean that unless one company beats all of the others to the punch, it's probably not going to happen mainstream.