Moral philosophy and self-driving cars
I was never a techno freak or a gadget girl but some things I would not mind having. A self-driving car is one of those things. When it comes to technology, the progress that humanity has made in the last 100 years is remarkable and worthy of all praise. There is still so much to come and I am really excited about it. AI is the future and I am one of those people that is ready for it. I see technological progress beneficial for us. We will have more and more time to evolve psychologically and spiritually once the every-day chores become automated or replaced with technology. Call me a utopian Star Trek fan but with technology advancement, moral advancement follows. The question is, are we ready for it?
CC0 image, Pixabay, author: ranjitdixit , adapted by me
When it comes to self-driving cars, a discussion about their lack of morals and empathy seems to be a problem for some people. There are even those who propose that we abandon that kind of technology and promote their views by spreading fear and misinformation. By giving people only one side of the story, they are withholding information and manipulating the general public stand on this. They use lines like How could a car choose between a baby and an old person if it had to hit one of them and kill them? And you could Mr. KnowItAll?
Back in 1967, the Oxford moral philosopher Philippa Foot devised a thought experiment where she talked about the driver of a runaway tram (trolley) which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another. There are five men working on one track and one man on the other, whichever track the driver chooses, someone will die. In 1976, the American philosopher Judith J. Thomson wrote a paper called ‘Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem’, where she introduced George and a fat man on the bridge. George can see that the trolley is about to kill 5 people and can either let it happen or throw a fat man on trolleys path to save the men but kill the one man.
A negative duty
and a positive duty
In the scenario from Thomson, people were conflicted between a negative and a positive duty. A negative duty was not to harm the fat man on the bridge, he was innocent and it was hard justifying murdering him. On the other hand, a positive duty was to save the 5 men on the track. Foot and Thompson had different views on this. Foot was fine with killing the man and Thompson agreed with philosophers influenced by Kant who said that it would be morally right to steer the trolley away from the five in the first version, but morally wrong to push the fat man in the second version. Ever since then, new versions of the problems were introduced.
If you had to choose between staying in your lane and killing five people with your car or switching lanes and killing one man, what would you choose? What if the five people were old and the one in another lane was a child? What if the one person in another lane was someone you know and the 5 people you did not know? Would you kill one woman to save 5 men? Would you kill one man to save 5 women? What happens if we introduce sick people, politicians, doctors or even your mother to the story, would your answer change?
There is no universaly correct
solution to the trolley problem.
The trolley problem is a question of human morality, and an example of a philosophical view called consequentialism. The thing that most people, unfortunately, do not realize is that there is no correct answer to this question. It is not designed to have a solution but intended to provoke thought and create an intellectual discourse. For more than five decades, this problem did not need to be resolved, only contemplated. The time has come when some think that the correct answer is needed because self-driving cars are our modern-day trolley problem and they need to be programmed in a way to make the best decision. What is the best decision then?
In 2014 researchers at the MIT Media Lab designed an experiment called the Moral Machine. It is a simple game-like platform that crowdsources peoples decisions on how self-driving cars should prioritize lives in different variations of the "trolley problem." The site is still operational and gathering data. I just finished it and it took me about 15 minutes for 13 scenarios. I am not sure if that was too quick or too slow. Try it for yourself and let me know how it went. Just click here:
Moral Machine
In four years, people from 233 countries and territories have logged 40 million decisions which makes this one of the largest studies ever done on global moral preferences. It shows how cross-cultural ethics diverge on the basis of culture, economics, and geographic location. There was a paper published with the complete analysis but we will get to that a bit later. Lets first see how the experiment works.
Image created by me using CC0 clipart 1, 2, 3
The Moral Machine took the basic idea of a trolley problem to test nine different situations with a self-driving car. Should a self-driving car prioritize humans over pets, passengers over pedestrians, more lives over fewer, women over men, young over old, fit over sickly, higher social status over lower, law-abiders over law-benders, and should the car swerve (take action) or stay on course (inaction)? When you enter the site, you need to scroll down a bit until you see the button "Start judging" that you need to click on in order to start the moral machine. You will get two images showing you different decisions, you choose by clicking on the image. There will be little skulls above the heads of people who will die and if you need clarification, just click below on the "Show description" that is under every image to get the full explanation of who is in what scenario.
Now we come to the most interesting part of all of this, the data analysis. Participants from collectivist cultures like China and Japan are less likely to spare the young over the old. We can hypothesize how this is because of a greater emphasis on respecting the elderly in those countries. Me? I always chose to spare the young people and decided to kill the old ones. People from France mostly agree with me. When it came to the sheer number of people in harm's way, the results showed that participants from individualistic cultures placed a stronger emphasis on sparing more lives given all the other choices. This was my way to go too and France once again agrees with me, like most people from the UK and US too.
You can read the full analysis in this research paper:
The Moral Machine experiment by Edmond Awad, Sohan Dsouza, Richard Kim, Jonathan Schulz, Joseph Henrich, Azim Shariff, Jean-François Bonnefon & Iyad Rahwan from 25th of September 2018
Humanity has never allowed a machine to autonomously decide who should live and who should die and it never will. The mear concept is impossible because in order for a machine to be able to make a decision, it needs to be programmed to make it and it is programmed by a human being so all that talk about car deciding is BS. They are not deciding, they are following the code in which they are programmed. Cars will not make ethical decisions, humans who are building them will. This proposes a completely new set of questions. Will they be made to correspond to the morals of each individual country or have a global set of rules?
Machine ethics should be
aligned with human values
When it comes to AI, we are no longer talking about some distant future. Artificial intelligence is being created and growing as we speak. AI has evolved to not only a point where it can walk and talk like humans but also to a point where it is controlling quantum computers, revealing how people process abstract thought, enhancing data analysis for Large Hadron Collider, helping in rehabilitation and do not get me started on AI bugs that are designed to save our lives or how they have built an AI neural network that mimics the fruit fly's visual system and can distinguish and re-identify flies. Just read about a cyborg cockroach and be amazed:
A cyborg cockroach could someday save your life from sciencedaily.com about a tiny neuro-controller created by researchers at the University of Connecticut
My opinion on this is fairly simple. Humans are a diverse species. We are not the same, our technology should not be either. It is completely logical that cultural differences should be respected and my moral views cannot be enforced on yours just as European culture cannot be enforced on Asian people etc. Technology should follow that example with diversity in products. A self-driving car for Japan cannot have the same settings as the one for the American or Europen market. It would be dangerous (and frankly, a bit stupid) to propose a general ethics that all people and technology should follow. This kind of global research as the Moral machine can help us gather enough data that will help in future AI development so I urge you once again, visit the Moral machine and give it a go, your answers are valuable.
There is a tv series called "The Good Place" that I absolutely love and recommend to everyone to watch. If you want to see the trolley problem explained and portrayed amazingly well, watch the episode 5 of season 2. Here is the Episode Highlight. Viewers be adviced, it is funny but there is some blood, just a little bit.
To read more about this topic, check out these REFERENCES:
Trolley problem from wikipedia.org
Could There Be A Solution To The Trolley Problem? from philosophynow.org by Omid Panahi
Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from. from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao
Until next time,
KEEP YOUR SMILE ON
&
USE THE MORAL MACHINE.
Be sure to leave me a comment on how was it to use the Moral machine. Were the questions easy or hard? Did you have any problems with deciding?
Image sources AND LICENCES in order of appearance:
- all images used in this post are free for commercial use, they are royalty free with the links to original images provided under them
- line divider that I use is from FREE CLIPART LIBRARY, and is here
- title pictures are made by me using the CC0 images from pixabay that can be found here
- my bitmoji avatar was created on https://www.bitmoji.com/, visit the site to create yourown
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It's not the "trolley problem" that makes me wary of self-driving cars - it's my own safety! I don't want to drive something that can potentially be hacked. I'm a bit of a control freak. I prefer to drive an old car with as little computerisation as possible.
Also, I love driving. I came downstairs on my 17th birthday holding 'L' plates, and I passed my driving test two months later. Maybe I'm weird, but I like to be in the driver's seat.
I get what you are saying and understand it, my hubby is the same way. Me on the other hand... I am not much of a driver so I will take my chances with the technology, I am sure it drives better than me and is safer than me on the streets lol. Thank you for sharing your views on this, much love! 💚
Ohhhhh. That was reasonably intense. I actually chose swerve every time but two because the swerve adds a variable and seems to me to offer a small chance of increasing the pedestrian odds.
I agree with you, local cultures need to be respected and used in these choices. One size does not fit all. (I personally never buy 'one size fits all' because I am not sized like all :) )
Thanks Petra. You have outdone yourself again. This was a terrific article that will send me back to moral machine again. What a wonderful find AND a great presentation with it.
I think I will have another go at it too and give myself more time to think. The first time, I went with my instinct and did not think too much, just watched for young and old and more or fewer people lol. Thank you for using the machine, the more info it gets the better and thank you for your lovely words 💚
Very nicely presented @zen-art. It truly reminds me of a Star Trek quote. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" In the first scenario they're both right or both wrong depending on your point of view. I think with the 'Trolley' scenario overall which ever causes the least amount of collateral damage, should always be the goal.
I honestly love the idea of a self driving car. I have an 8 hour car trip coming up on Sunday. Wouldn't it be nice to hop in set your destination and go? I can't wait for something like that to happen. Probably not in my lifetime.
With what has been tested so far and knowing of 2 deaths that could have been prevented had the 'driver' paid attention like they should have the incidents could have been avoided. Yet, if we're using that technology, there should be no worry to where there has to be a 'driver' still. If we cannot get to that point, then I don't think we're ready. Even these accidents which resulted in death were driver error for not paying attention. One was reading a book the other was on her phone, neither was paying attention to what was going on.
I don't know what has happened in other countries as far as automated cars, it would be interesting how they view the situation.
Thank you for such a nice comment and for sharing your views on this. I am looking forward to this technology becoming ready and available to us too and I think it will be during our lifetime. The progress is fast and I give it another 10 years (maybe less) until they become normal to see on streets and I think in about 25 years, there will be no more petrol cars and most of them will be self-driving. Fingers crossed :)
I didn't know about the moral machine! I'm going to try it as soon as the orchestra bus arrives! I wonder if there is a prize for winning... Jk!
I was amazed at how good they made it and interesting to participate in
Really interesting read! As an individual who drives a lot for work, I welcome self-driving vehicles very much. Most days it feels as if there is little intelligence (human) behind the wheel due to tech distractions, putting on makeup, etc. Add to that, people's lack of attention to the way the roads are laid out for the most efficient means of going A to B (oh how I loathe those last second 3+ lane switches to make the exit!
Self driving cars have the potential to reduce accidents and traffic, all while giving people the ability to do what they really want to do while commuting—looking at Facebook and Instagram 😁
#steemitbloggers
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Hahaha, funny but so true. I am a bad driver but responsible one, I try lol but that is just not my thing. When I look at some other drivers, I am a genius when it comes to them. Self-driving cars are definitely more safer and I welcome them, the sooner they are available to masses the better! :D
Hehe! The fact that you are aware of your shortcomings excludes you from the title of 'bad driver'!
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The trolley problem could eventually lead to Artificial Insanity.
in short
If the globalists keep people in poverty.
Then families will be bigger (It's a scientific fact that people in poverty have more kids)
Poverty on one side + filthy rich people in robocars = one hell of a mess.
Rich people in a hurry to make more money in a world filled with poverty.
So the rich tend to force the robocars to speed.
Then with overpopulation things will go wrong in exponential growth.
Robocars will go insane and become terrorists in their own right.
Yeah a real doom scenario. :-D
They said the same about cell phones and now almost everyone has a cell phone. It was the same with tv too and cars when they first came around. Technology is becoming cheaper and more available to everyone, maybe not the newest but with every new thing, the last thing becomes more affordable. I see self-driving cars as normal in the future as todays cars are normal to us with no doom scenario. Normal people will have self-driving cars, filthy rick people will have self-driving cars with brand logos and gold hubcaps on it, maybe special glass and interior design but when it comes to technology, it will be similar in every vehicle. I see electric cars as normal too and cars that run on oil banned by the law. It will happen and I think more sooner than we think. Thank you for adding to the conversation with your interesting comment 💚
I also see robocouch taking away the joy of machining a car from A to B...
But indeed it will happen. No more off the road, no more scenic detours.
Traveling will soon become the new way for catching up sleep. While hoping that you actually wake up without being hit by a 'trolly' :D
And yes, big industry will ban the petrolburners ASAP, to push the market for electric wasting devices that waste twice the amount of energy while doing transport and 4 times more energy to be produced by the new hi-grade metals (Like the metal that Musk now uses for his cars, that is only in there as an excuse for the military need of those metals in the near future)
I don't drive anymore but I used to prefer to drive myself
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