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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Self Driving Cars Could Be Programmed To Kill You In Order To Save Other Lives

For the past few years, Google’s self-driving cars have been traveling around the country to test how well they work and how safe they are. The cars have been in a total of 13 accidents, however, the self-driving vehicles were not responsible for any of the accidents that took place.

Most of the accidents occurred when the cars were rear-ended by other drivers who were not paying attention. The cars have logged about 1,011,338 miles since 2009 without a driver, and then nearly another million with a driver.

The cars are maneuvered with complex algorithms, that calculate everything from weather conditions, to red lights, to evasive moves in accident situations.

In the tweaking of these algorithms, some very strange ethical questions have begun to arise. For example, is it ethical for a car to be programmed to kill you if it means saving the lives of many other people?

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope Obama is getting the first one!

Anonymous said...

8:36 we can only hope and pray!

Anonymous said...

Can someone give me some concrete reasons for a self-driving car? I mean a car that actually does it all while you ride along. I can't think of one.

Anonymous said...

So you can work on projects, sales pitches, final reports, whatever you need to have done before arriving on the job. No more wasted time commuting.

Anonymous said...

We've had self driving cars for decades. They're called buses!!