Table of Contents

1. The New Decision Makers
2. Quick Fix
3. Problem Perspective
4. Braking to the Rescue
5. The Path Forward
6. References

The New Decision Makers

We make decisions everyday. We, as humans, make decisions regarding our lives, which may impact others, every single day. But what about when the decisions made by machines have the ability to impact human lives more drastically than ever before? Some of the world’s biggest tech companies now have self-driving car programmes. These companies argue that the vehicles could improve road safety, ease traffic and improve fuel efficiency, and their claims do have a scientific foothold to stand on.

The ethical dilemma of self-driving cars

But others say the cars raise ethical issues, and could have unintended consequences for public safety. This in turn kicks off a growing moral debate on autonomous cars’ decision making process in the event of a situation that could endanger lives. When a human is put in a life threatening situation, any way they react will be construed as just that — a reaction. While it is true that self driving cars will ultimately reduce accidents by removing human error from the equation, they cannot totally avoid them. But if self driving vehicles are programmed beforehand on how to react, this can be construed as premeditated violence, and subject to bias introduced by the programmers or policy makers.

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