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

[Longhorn]

TIL driverless cars are a thing

[Edwardo Piet]

If I buy a car I'd like it to not automatically kill me. Plus, if the car kills the pedestrian, that's the pedestrian's fault for getting in the way of the care, and I have no culpability. 

To be honest I wouldn't just go ahead and buy a car that mows down people for me, stick my head out the window and yell "Not to blame people! Don't arrest me the car is killing you all by itself! I'm so glad I bought this car! I don't care about your deaths people! Not my fault!".

Buying something that automatically has any chance of killing people, would make you culpable to the extent that the killing them would be likely to happen IMHO. Maybe not legally, but morally.

[DespondentFishdeathMasochismo]

If I buy a car I'd like it to not automatically kill me. Plus, if the car kills the pedestrian, that's the pedestrian's fault for getting in the way of the care, and I have no culpability. 

To be honest I wouldn't just go ahead and buy a car that mows down people for me, stick my head out the window and yell "Not to blame people! Don't arrest me the car is killing you all by itself! I'm so glad I bought this car! I don't care about your deaths people! Not my fault!".

Buying something that automatically has any chance of killing people, would make you culpable to the extent that the killing them would be likely to happen IMHO. Maybe not legally, but morally.

If the driverless car couldn't stop in time to hit a pedestrian, then would it be any less culpable than a manually driven car, to stop in time before hitting the pedestrian? In my eyes the outcome is the same, except one outcome favors the pedestrian's life over the driver's life. Your analogy about yelling out the window is hilarious though 

[The Grand Nudger]

I have to ask, if we're all going to be in driverless cars someday, why don't we just cut to the chase and build better public transit systems...? Wtf is wrong with a train...lol?

[Ben Davis]

To the OP, in my current industry (insurance), this is a pertinent and much discussed question. The insurance industry in the UK is lobbying for more & better automation of driving as it makes claim rates more predictable. I think we can discount the idea of the auto-driver turning control over to a human driver in the case of emergencies because in many (most?) incidents, there's simply wouldn't be enough time for the switch-over to give the manual driver thinking and action time. I think the answer lies in speed control, collision recognition and braking tech: if the car's going at a speed which is likely to reduce damage to anyone it hits (e.g. 30mph or below), collision recognition is rapid (possibly predictive) and brakes are improved so to rapidly reduce speed (therefore the force of the collision), many lives would be saved thus removing the need for a car to do anything but take minimal collision avoidance action. It would be impossible to avoid all injury but at least more people would live.

[Edwardo Piet]

If the driverless car couldn't stop in time to hit a pedestrian, then would it be any less culpable than a manually driven car, to stop in time before hitting the pedestrian? In my eyes the outcome is the same, except one outcome favors the pedestrian's life over the driver's life. Your analogy about yelling out the window is hilarious though 

Intentions matter here, but so does knowledge beforehand about whether there is any likelihood of the person being run over.

If I somehow knew with 100% certainty that if I got in my driverless car on day X then that car would necessarily run over someone, but it won't on any other day, and I can prove that I have that 100% knowledge (somehow, hypothetically) then IMHO if I go and drive anyway on that one day when I am certain my driverless car would come someone, I am morally culpable. I should take a break on that day if I really have that knowledge, the fact that the car does it for me is irrelevant in this case: Intentionally killing is bad but so is knowingly allowing someone to be killed even if you don't directly do it yourself, the point is if you can prevent it and you know how, then not doing so is equivalent to killing from a consequentalist perspective.

[DespondentFishdeathMasochismo]

If the driverless car couldn't stop in time to hit a pedestrian, then would it be any less culpable than a manually driven car, to stop in time before hitting the pedestrian? In my eyes the outcome is the same, except one outcome favors the pedestrian's life over the driver's life. Your analogy about yelling out the window is hilarious though 

Intentions matter here, but so does knowledge beforehand about whether there is any likelihood of the person being run over.

If I somehow knew with 100% certainty that if I got in my driverless car on day X then that car would necessarily run over someone, but it won't on any other day, and I can prove that I have that 100% knowledge (somehow, hypothetically) then IMHO if I go and drive anyway on that one day when I am certain my driverless car would come someone, I am morally culpable. I should take a break on that day if I really have that knowledge, the fact that the car does it for me is irrelevant in this case: Intentionally killing is bad but so is knowingly allowing someone to be killed even if you don't directly do it yourself, the point is if you can prevent it and you know how, then not doing so is equivalent to killing from a consequentalist perspective.

It just seems like a spectacularly well timed homicide, if you know exactly when to get into your car, in order to make it override it's own programming of not hitting pedestrians, in order to kill a pedestrian. I just don't see how someone could possibly use the car to their advantage in that way.

[IATIA]

I have to ask, if we're all going to be in driverless cars someday, why don't we just cut to the chase and build better public transit systems...? Wtf is wrong with a train...lol?

Schedules and locations.

[Minimalist]

So, let's say a driverless car is transporting a bunch of drunks.  If the cops stop the car and find that they cannot arrest anyone for DUI will they shoot the shit out of the car in frustration?

[TheRealJoeFish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tpYFen3fJM