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

[Heat]

Wait I figured it out.


You never mentioned any trees, and since cars are built pretty sturdy,

The best option assuming it's either one or the other in the scenario would probably be to accelerate off the cliff completely, clearing it just enough so that it will land flat(hopefully) on the ground below.

Would cause injuries, obviously, but assuming the passenger is wearing a seatbelt, if they were in one of the back seats it would be the most likely outcome that both survive without major damage.


I think it's unfair to say the cliff AND the child/man are both given deaths either way, because it makes it an impossible problem, when it should be more situational.


You can also say you didn't tell us which way the child/man is facing, if he was facing away from the car it would be much more probable death than facing toward it, so it's possible if he was facing toward it, since the car would clearly have enough time to swerve it would also have enough time to decelerate enough so that if you hit the kid/man it's less probable death.



And if you want to continue this as a "realistic question" as opposed to the previous, there is no scenario in which a smart car would be going an insane speed around a corner, or else there would be no use for them, we're not going to assume these are dumb inventions for the sake of you getting an ethical answer. The car has multiple options before deciding whether to kill off one or the other.

Cars slow down around corners, if it has time to decide whether to swerve or not, let's say that's about 3 seconds, if you want to pawn this off as a REALISTIC scenario the car would be going slow enough to slow down, even if not completely, enough to not kill the pedestrian.




However, the real answer, without cutting corners and sticking strictly to the question;

The driver steps out in the street, or child. The car is in the middle of the cliff, and the pedestrian.

The MOST logical by far is to hit the pedestrians car in order to decelerate. This answer is not assuming anything about the position of the man/child or the speed of the car. This would work for almost any scenario, unless the automated car is going above the speed limit which is a cop out because a driverless car isn't programmed to break the law, quite the opposite.

This would result in both people surviving, and is by far the least life risking situation ignoring the cost of the car, but if the goal is to answer in the effort of preserving life, this is what is the most likely scenario that both people survive. I believe I just beat the question .