The ethical dilemma of self-driving cars - Patrick Lin 

At first I would have crashed into the motorcyclist with the helmet cause of the lower risk but after realizing that I’m hitting the driver just because they are following the rules and being cautious it really hit me.

Allow self driving vehicles to communicate with one another. That way, in such a scenario, multiple vehicles could work in unison to allow a safe pathway out for the car in danger. This would, of course, require very rapid communication between the vehicles. It would significantly lower the chances of this happening, but not prevent it in every instance.

The system should deploy its hidden rocket launchers to blow the boxes up.

The real question is why that self driving car is tailgating the semi.

This video brought up a lot of points I hadn't considered about self driving vehicals. Very interesting topic, I'm curious as to where it will lead.

Now here's another ethical dilemma: When we get to the point that most cars are self-driving and are 10 times less likely to have an accident, should humans even be allowed to drive on public roads at all?

Answer: make trucks with loosely binded cargo illegal

I just want to say I think this is a beautifully realized piece of communication. The pace of information flow is accessible without being patronizing, the text is very well structured and delivered, and the graphics and music support it perfectly. Good job, people!

The future where cars dish out street justice haha

I predict that future cars will continually be made structurally stronger and safer for occupants during a crash instead of having programs to tell it to swerve.

This is very interesting to think about. It also raises an assumption here: In this scenario, if all cars were self-driving, could they sense everything around them or not? If so, the other cars may be able to 'see' this event happening and account for it to move out of the way to make a gap for the oncoming car that would otherwise hit the object. However that seems to assume a perfect overseeing system, probably too difficult to create at this stage. Awesome to think about tho

I see that most comments missed the main point of this video. The given example is designed to tackle the ethical dilemma by assuming the choice between different victims is inevitable and you guys are just trying to run away from it by reversing the assumption itself saying it can be prevented somehow. BTW the assumption is fair and almost certain to occur especially at the early stages of self-driving vehicles.

I've gone over this very topic several times in the last few years and have come to the same conclusion each time. The only ethical way of handling accidents with self-driving cars is for each of them to prioritize the lives of people *outside* of the car. That means they will always choose to put passengers in danger before putting outsiders in danger. This way, it's the passenger's conscious decision to trust their life to a car the moment they enter it.

Unfortunately in the end the decision will probably be financial. Who do I hit to minimize the expected liability.

Self driving cars would automatically be a safe distance from other cars so they could brake in time

Doing a report on self driving cars struggling to find content then I watched this and my mind basically melted

In a world of self driving cars, why are people still riding motorcycles?

It's a bad system that would allow itself to be boxed in in the first place. If there are no contingencies, create contingencies. This is especially true once all cars are automated and are all just part of a larger system. All should be able to compensate for any other under any circumstance.

The colours in this video are INCREDIBLE!

One thing to consider is that self driving cars almost entirely eliminate human reaction time. This means the car can make decisions significantly faster than humans and dramatically reduce the chance of a collision taking place. Granted there will be some scenarios where a collision may be unavoidable, but in practice given collision rates of self-driving cars vs human-driven cars, especially when you consider evolution of self-driving cars working together on the same road sharing information with each other in order to even further reduce risk, I don't think this will be a problem.

That is if you only see 3 options. I see more. If the other cars on the road are also self driving, they can all instantly start to make way for you to minimize damage and there is a good chance everyone can walk away. Otherwise, you can still swing towards the car, but not smach him. Just get mostly out of the way of the falling thing. And blame goes to whoever tied down that load.

If the car is intelligent enough to identify different scenarios at the point of the incident. Wouldn't it be intelligent enough not to drive too close behind a flatbed truck with an insecure load?

In the video, the man said that if we were driving in that boxed in car in manual mode and which ever way we react, it will be understood as just a reaction and not a deliberate decision. Self driving cars are said to be predicted in reducing traffic accidents and fatalities by removing human error from the equation and there can also be other benefits like decreased harmful emissions and minimize unproductive and stressful driving times. This video is talking about the ethical dilemma of self driving cars. He also mentioned that could it be the case that a random decision is still better than a determined one designed to minimize harm. I think that it is telling us about making our own decisions, the correct reaction and response and helping us learn about technology ethics and that although reality sometimes may not play like our thought experiments but it is not the point because they're designed to isolate and stress test our intuition on ethics.

It's hard to take sides but this dilemma will make our society better to make self driving vehicles more safely than the old one

You can put a constraint on the self-driving car that it is not allowed to follow so close to a vehicle that it cannot stop in time should something fall off the back of it. That would avoid the posited decision entirely.

If and when all cars (and motorbikes) are self driving, they could be connected to a large network. The car spots danger and notifies the motorbike to the right to move out of the way. Connecting all self driving cars could solve a lot of problems

Never thought of it like that. Amazing !

That's actually pretty fascinating and crazy because you're directly defining "ethics" and the futuree

"if shit happens to you, who should you sacrifice as a consequence?"

I love this subject - because not only is it going to obviously save lives - it's also advancing a broader understanding, conversation, and debate about ethics which benefits us all. People are still going to die, but damn, far fewer than today.

Thank you. Well done. A good question is better than a good answer.

In the example shown there was ample space to slow down and (partially) change lanes to very close to the motorbike or the other vehicle. The box was a side that could be avoided easily. Self driving cars know *exactly* how big they are, how close they can get and are designed avoid the situation to begin with.

This COULD be countered by another advantage of self-driving cars: instant communication. Let's look at this scenario again. A heavy load of objects falls on front of your car. It swerves right, but avoids any impact as every other vehicle (being self-driving) immediately moves in sync with your car, organically dissapating the distortion in traffic caused by you not dying. We don't make a dangerous vehicle drive away from the rest, we make self-drving cars and regular cars drive separately.

Jesus Christ.. The self-driving car will fucking brake and avoid hitting the objects.

bruh why not just program the car to fly over the object

brilliantly executed as always

Can't the car just slow down so that the damage done will be minimized? The car behind you would also slow down if they also had a self-driving car

If these type of self driving cars end up being the majority of cars on the roads, and they are all programmed the same way and are told to avoid crashing into a certain type of vehicle, then this will encourage the public to buy the type of vehicle that these programs try to avoid crashing into. And these vehicles will be the ones that are inherently less likely to survive a crash, which is precisely why the program tries avoid crashing into them. Therefore, by introducing these self driving cars, we are encouraging people to buy cars that are inherently more dangerous to drive.

This is why vehicle to vehicle communication is SO important. If a car can communicate with all other vehicles in its vicinity and those vehicles react to one another, together they can find a way to minimise damage for everyone involved.

Thanks for making people think! 😃

This video made me question my utilitarian philosophy big-time - going well beyond the efficacy of self-driving cars. I realize now I was just generalizing by saying I believe in utilitarianism - saying stuff like "to minimize harm" or "to maximize happiness". But, as is usually the case when it comes to one's personal philosophies/ beliefs (especially if said "one" is twenty two), it turns out life is tricky and many a scenario could be thought up that leads to conflicting answers using the same basic rules.

Try to hit everyone

7 years later and this is still a relevant dilemma, I guess the more things change...

The solution to the dilemma is to have the cars network with each other so that they always leave each other escape routes. This would not require all cars to be self driving and networking either as long as about half of them were, and before we get to that point, simply program the self driving cars to follow at a greater distance.

i feel like in the future we'll all have rateings like in black mirror s3ep1 and those with the lower rank are most likely to be killed

Well if you can decide whats ethically correct...well normally if it'd be random anyways, than just program the car to have a random response.

Very interesting video in the ethics of what should we allow computers to do and what desicions they should be able to make.

this is a very interesting stuff to think about. it really got me thinking.

I think that at some point in the future all vehicles on the road will be required by law to be self-driving and that they all will communicate with each so that what one does will affect the actions of each other. When one vehicle moves into the path of another the other will sense what is happening and will be able to counter the move in the safest possible way.

There should be different lane roads for different vechiles

Honestly; randomize between which to hit, and don't collide with the boxes. I don't think it's moral to decide who gets to live or die; both are just as deserving of life.

Just go in the direction of least object resistance (scan and see where there is the least stuff/biggest gap). Additionally invest in front and rear signaling that a stop is about to occur such as a louder horns and emergency blinking leds

Real solution: The self driving car shouldn't be following that closely to the vehicle ahead, especially a truck loaded with cargo

Want to kill someone? Find out when they are driving close to a cliff and hire 10 people to stand in front of the road! The car will drive itself off the cliff to save the 10 people. Genius!

Interesting! Food for thought.

1:21 Exactly! This is NOT something we should be highly concerned for now. We should start by turning our focus into developing the technology and educating the general public that YES, self-driving cars ARE SAFER, as they have a much MUCH lower rate of accidents per distance travelled than human drivers do. Cases like the one depicted in this video will rarely occurr and wil defintely ocurr much less than in our current roads, dominated by human drivers. In my opinion, videos like this one are just damaging the general public's perception of self-driving cars and pushing it's development even further....

The bigger picture is that the more driverless cars there are the better the overall safety. Therefore, I think ultimately having the car prioritize the passengers inside may improve overall safety by increasing the number of driverless cars.

"And the robot car is now meting out street justice." There it is folks. TED-Ed confirms self-driving cop cars in the future.

this is why some companies are doing mass surveys, then telling the car what the majority of surveyor's answered, that was it is, in a way, transferring the decision to the people

This video was very eerie to me and idk why.

Dark and dangerous times lie ahead.

The best choice for the car manufacturers would be randomized decision making Each case would have equal probability of happening In simple words if the same scenario is repeated 3 time , each outcome will have a probability of 33%

I work professionally as a programmer, that is my job. And I want my car to be so little automated as possible. I don't want it to break when I am about to hit something even, for that day when I actually don't want it to. I hate that today we so often have to fight our devices that tries to prohibit what the user wants. I would say Mac is the worst offender but Windows is getting there as well. I fear the day where driving will be illegal and only self driving ai cars will be allowed, it will probably come to that though..

I think that in the future as more and more vehicles become "self driving" they will be connected together so vehicle avoiding deadly accident etc. a kid on road would tell the car next to it as well so they would manover together so that noone would get harmed or the damage and danger is minimal

Interesting point near the end: If we don't want to make all these tough decisions, we could still just use a randomizer.

I have thought about this for a long time, even before I watched this video. The conclusion that I came to was that I think the only possible solution for manufacturers is inaction. If an ethical dilemma is detected, do nothing. If it kills the driver, so be it. If it kills 10 toddlers, let physics take its course. Otherwise, it runs into an ethical minefield that nobody want to tread.

In a world of Self Driving Cars, wouldn’t there be a sensor to detect if the cargo on the truck in front is unstable so it could slow down slightly in advance to avoid hitting anything/anyone at all?

this can play to our advantage... upon reacting to a situation the vehicle to make the first move emits a stress signal which gives it's surrounding vehicles corresponding instructions as per the signal transmitted... imagine if a collision were to happen... all anticipatory steps will be taken by all vehicles in a choreographed format (like a flash mob) of course it is possible only if all cars are self driving ones

It's just considering the possibility that a self driven car is only driving as one , not that possibility that all self drive cars are more connected and can send an alert to other cars in order to minimize the harm

Better solution, no self driving cars, only trains

The animation is amazing 😉

Great animation

in this particular example I think it should be obvious the car should should apply full brakes and ensure the impact in order to minimize harm to others surrounding the primary accident. I also believe see a future where car accidents can be 100% removed. sensors should have notified the truck its load was unstable.

Simple concept since I can tell you we are a little ways away from putting a system on a car that can determine head gear. My thought brings it back to a more simplistic approach based on instinctual nature, just now programmed. I'm going to give my thoughts in a stepped up version starting with basic and simple up to higher complexities. My view is that of someone going into electrical engineering, as well as a fireman on a department that services two of the most heavily used, midwest interstates. I have also added at the end of each order paragraph a summary of what devices and/or systems will be needed to include that order in a vehicle. First order: All else fails, vier right, slow down. In countries where you drive on the wrong side of the road, vier left. This is simple as it would cause you to push you or the others into the shoulder away from oncoming traffic. This minimizes the chances that someone will be pushed into an oncoming lane and, assuming everyone is paying attention, will allow the person on that side to divert to the shoulder. This requires no input device other than danger detection. Second order: Vier toward noted/mapped shoulder including grass areas w/o steep drop. No shoulder, Stop. This will be used in places where there may be a closer shoulder on the opposite side or in the case of construction where the shoulder was moved or on a bridge with no shoulder. This can be maintained by adding a single bit of information to all routed roads accessible to the car and updated based on reads by it or other cars. The basic system requires only a stored map of safe shoulders. Third order: If all local lanes are moving in the same direction, and there is a large gap, vier towards it, including the inside shoulder of a highway. This is the first step in complexities relying on simple wide angle cameras or any form of distance and object detection already used. In this case, the motorcyclist/scooterist could potentially take the penalty; however, they also have the smallest footprint in a lane and the highest capability of accelerating out of the way. This method will only be used if their presence is not detected, either based on them being a distance from the sensor or any other occurrences that throw off the detection. This requires only local awareness technology already in use. Fourth order: Large gaps detected nearby by others, vier in direction. This begins a much more complex area whereby the cars start communicating with each other. This networking is already being put in place by modern self driving cars or assisted driving cars. This order relies on the other vehicles informing your car of potential avoidances and where it can vier with the same idea as moving toward the right for the shoulder, only this time its a moving shoulder/gap. This requires sensor' information to be broadcastable locally, possibly over a decided wifi channel. Fifth order: Communicate to other smart cars to make a necessary gap to allow yours to divert. This is merely an increase from the previous order adding the complexity of all the local cars determining the optimal direction of movement. This requires the computers to link and process all information quickly and accurately, then send out instructions. Sixth order: No detectable oncoming traffic, move to oncoming lane, then back immediately. This is put farther down the complexity tree as it would require a good bit more in communicating systems before relying on a car to determine an oncoming lane to be the correct choice right away. Even if it is observably empty. This requires sensors either on the road or for every vehicle to be required to broadcast position reliably to a system immediately accessible to the vehicle. Through these six orders you might note that I haven't actually addressed the given matter directly. This is because that would rely on deliberately deciding to hurt someone. I indirectly stated my decision in the second order though by saying that if the car can determine no shoulder, it is to simply stop. This decision is due to my experience from recorded crashes and participating at accident scenes as a fireman. If there is a shoulder and people can move to it, damage and harm will be minimized by diverting in that direction. However, if there is a barricade on both sides, such as is often the case with a bridge, then diverting will cause more damage and all involved passengers will end up hurt. If there is a guarantee that everyone will be hurt extensively, then minimizing the number hurt becomes priority to improve the ability to save those hurt.

Excelente información para reflexionar.

the thing also is option 4 hit the breaks if there is enouth space between you and the 1 behind you the only thing that happens is you hitting the objects with slower pace and minemizing damage to you and the surrounding. the other is there is still momentum in the objects falling so if they fall and you hit the breaks (and holding them to hit the breaks for others behind you that didnt see you stop) you would minimize damage by still crashing into them but with less damage then needed.

False dilemma there as in the first place the minimum separation distance could have been designed to give the car the necessary stopping distance to avoid any swerving.

What I learned from this: Don't tailgate semis while in a self driving car.

I agree the fact that driverless cars or self driving cars are good in terms of safety. However as car enthusiast it brakes my heart that I won't be able to go out for a nice drive like we do today.

Solution: Program cars to adotpt to the exsisting patern of traffic and make them drive in diagonal lines (on parallel streets). This way each car not only has a distance of a whole car-length to the one infront of it, but also there is space on the left and right to temporarily dodge incoming threats (my idea assumes that human drivers have to behave the same)

2:20 neither, both are pretty much guaranteed to die. it's which ever one has a leather jacket AND a helmet one because a leather jacket will actually reduce physical harm.

Tq

this scenario might happen but the car would be at an appropriate flowing distance and could also be sophisticated enough to tell if the load is unsafe and tell the lorry ahead to pull over. an interesting topic but I think it can be ultimately avoided with better technologies

My personal answer to the question, while still answering the question and not saying it won't happen, would be to swerve to nearest shoulder. If in left lane go left if right lane go right. If you're in the middle swerve towards the right where the slower traffic is, giving them a better chance to get to the shoulder or slam on the brakes to avoid you.

Program the car to take the action that is least likely to result in injury/death. If anyone of the 3 choices given in the video will result in a fatality then it's inevitable and thus the choice doesn't matter so long as the path least likely to result in injury/fatality was taken as the result would be identical if not worse in a manually controlled vehicle. The argument of premeditation holds little water as the individual hit by the vehicle is injured/killed regardless of whether or not the decision was pre-programmed, or instinctual reaction.

2:05 Minimizing harm would mean keeping straight, and not driving into either cyclist.

I thought the idea of self-driving cars was that the cars "communicate", so basically if my car registers the danger of the falling object, within milliseconds it communicates to the other cars that it needs to move away from its spot and calculates which cars have to move where to avoid anyone getting injured or driving into each other at all and every car moves accordingly.

The best way is to always maintain a minimum safe distance between the vehicle on the front in which we the car can safely stop itself without swerving and the distance will vary according to the speed of the vehicle

Its easy, it should just break. If it goes left or right it will cause a massive crash.

The issue with this is that a self driving car wouldn't put itself into a situation like this, especially with a truck carrying cargo.

It should detect the danger, send out an instant alarm to nearby vehicles, and communicate with those vehicles to work out a way for the car to exit the lane.

This is why self-driving cars should be indestructible. With that in mind, it can let the object fall without putting you or anyone else in danger.

"And now your self-driving car is dealing out street justice." Ha. That was funny.

I'm still not understanding why it wont hit the brakes ..

In a situation where heavy load falls of from truck then it is assuming it is a highway. (because stuff dosn't fall of slow vehicles.) Then the self driving cars are required to maintain a safe distance which they do even now. Hence they can stop and instruct cars behind for the same with communicating with them. Also different lanes have different speeds so if you have to change lanes in a situation explained as above, you go to the faster lane instructing other cars behind to adjust and make way for this car.

Hello, can you send me the script of the video, i am going to have an exam on it and would like to further analyze it if possible ? :)

I don't understand why a self-driving car would put its self into this position where it would be at risk. Surely it would be keeping a safe distance at all times. Also cars would be communicating with each other. Shouldn't the other self-driving car in this case the SUV at the speed of light be sped up and the car behind it slow down so the car boxed in can quickly shift across? I often think about this with the dilemma if you crash into the barrier and kill the passengers or plough through the pedestrians I don't understand why a car in adverse conditions would be driving in a way that it couldn't stop in time for pedestrians. Surely the car would be connected to a wider network and could be notified of people about to cross or approaching the junction well ahead of its approach. These 'problems' seem un realistic in smart connected world.

0:53

DAMN!! Who thought this up? Never even considered this!

Do you know how I can make this kind of video? Which tool does TED-Ed use?