Autonomous Vehicle Ethics: The Trolley Problem and Beyond

Description

"A runaway trolley is speeding down a track" So begins what is perhaps the most fecund thought experiment of the past several decades since its invention by Philippa Foot. Since then, moral philosophers have applied the "trolley problem" as a thought experiment to study many different ethical conflicts - and chief among them is the programming of autonomous vehicles. Nowadays, however, very few philosophers accept that the trolley problem is a perfect analogy for driverless cars or that the situations autonomous vehicles face will resemble the forced choice of the unlucky bystander in the original thought experiment. This book represents a substantial and purposeful effort to move the academic discussion beyond the trolley problem to the broader ethical, legal, and social implications that autonomous vehicles present. There are still urgent questions waiting to be addressed, for example: how AVs might interact with human drivers in mixed or "hybrid" traffic environments; how AVs might reshape our urban landscapes; what unique security or privacy concerns are raised by AVs as connected devices in the "Internet of Things"; how the benefits and burdens of this new technology, including mobility, traffic congestion, and pollution, will be distributed throughout society; and more. An attempt to map the landscape of these next-generation questions and to suggest preliminary answers, this volume draws on the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, economics, urban planning and transportation engineering, business ethics and more, and represents a global range of perspectives. Cover Autonomous Vehicle Ethics Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction Part I Autonomous Vehicles and Trolley Problems 1. Ethics and Risk Distribution for Autonomous Vehicles 2. Autonomous Vehicles, the Badness of Death, and Discrimination 3. Automated Vehicles and the Ethics of Classification 4. Trolleys and Autonomous Vehicles: New Foundations for the Ethics of Machine Learning 5. The Trolley Problem and the Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles in the Eyes of the Public: Experimental Evidence 6. Autonomous Vehicles in Drivers’ School: A Non-​Western Perspective 7. Autonomous Vehicles and Normative Pluralism 8. Discrimination in Algorithmic Trolley Problems Part II Ethical Issues beyond the Trolley Problem 9. Unintended Externalities of Highly Automated Vehicles 10. The Politics of Self-​Driving Cars: Soft Ethics, Hard Law, Big Business, Social Norms 11. Autonomous Vehicles and Ethical Settings: Who Should Decide? 12. Algorithms of Life and Death: A Utilitarian Approach to the Ethics of Self-​Driving Cars 13. Autonomous Vehicles, Business Ethics, and Risk Distribution in Hybrid Traffic 14. An Epistemic Approach to Cultivating Appropriate Trust in Autonomous Vehicles 15. How Soon Is Now?: On the Timing and Conditions for Adopting Widespread Use of Autonomous Vehicles 16. The Ethics of Abuse and Unintended Consequences for Autonomous Vehicles Part III Perspectives from Political Philosophy 17. Distributive Justice, Institutionalism, and Autonomous Vehicles 18. Autonomous Vehicles and the Basic Structure of Society 19. Supply Chains, Work Alternatives, and Autonomous Vehicles 20. Can Autonomous Cars Deliver Equity? 21. Making Autonomous Vehicle Technologies Matter: Ensuring Equitable Access and Opportunity Part IV Autonomous Vehicle Technology in the City 22. Fixing Congestion for Whom? The Distribution of Autonomous Vehicles’ Effects on Congestion 23. Fulfilling the Promise of Autonomous Vehicles with a New Ethics of Transportation 24. Ethics, Autonomous Vehicles, and the Future City 25. The Autonomous Vehicle in Asian Cities: Opportunities for Gender Equity, Convivial Urban Relations, and Public Safety in Seoul and Singapore 26. Autonomous Vehicles, the Driverless City, and the Pedestrian City Appendix: Varieties of Trolley Pessimism Index