Kill the Nuns or Run Over the Black Baby? (OT)

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Messages 1 - 17 of total 17 in this topic

Ricky D

Trad climber

Sierra Westside

Topic Author's Original Post - Jun 27, 2016 - 08:04pm PT

Help me please - have I really just read that a serious discussion is underway about Self-Driving Cars and how they should be programmed to decide between who to run over when you have to run over someone?

Is this the Google Car version of the Lifeboat Dilemma?

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/23/12010476/social-dilemma-autonomous-vehicles-car-moral-machine-trolley-problem

fear

Ice climber

hartford, ct

Jun 27, 2016 - 08:08pm PT

Can you get both with the Google Propane Tanker?

I jest I jest...

Ricky D

Trad climber

Sierra Westside

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 27, 2016 - 08:11pm PT

^^^Go with that - I flashed on Death Race 2000 - how many points for the Old Lady in the Wheelchair?

It is a Googe Car after all - video games have to be a part of the experience right?

Climberdude

Trad climber

Clovis, CA

Jun 27, 2016 - 08:24pm PT

Ricky,

Here I thought that this was going to be a great discussion of awesome punk or metal band names. I applaud the progress towards self-driving cars, but because I work in equipment that had computer control, I realize that the operation is only as good and safe as the software and logic development. How much effort is performed in the attempt to make something fail-proof is balanced against the cost to make it fail-proof.

healyje

Trad climber

Portland, Oregon

Jun 27, 2016 - 08:28pm PT

I suppose the idea is it wouldn't have been as 'catchy' if you'd simply said 'run over the baby'. Crikey this sh#t gets old.

Ricky D

Trad climber

Sierra Westside

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 27, 2016 - 09:04pm PT

Sorry - you are right that the use of the racial adjective could be construed as being inflammatory or insensitive. Not an excuse by any means, but the flashback image in my mind upon reading this news feed was a 10th grade Driver's Ed simulator course we had in South Carolina that in fact had us trying not to collide with a runaway stroller of black babies.

Probably culturally insensitive then in 1972 as it must be now.

I do apologize.

So it is decided - the Nuns have got to go.

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Jun 27, 2016 - 09:35pm PT

I will NEVER trust a car that doesn't have a human Driver.

Which only goes to prove you're not a cyclist.

I commute by bicycle, and the only reason I'm alive to write this is that I never trust a car that does have a human driver.

The sooner humans are removed from control of automobiles, the safer we'll all be.

Lorenzo

Trad climber

Portland Oregon

Jun 27, 2016 - 09:54pm PT

Iwill NEVER trust a car that
doesn't have a human Driver.

I have never trusted a human driver. The difference is that 40% of Humans are expected to make the Nun-baby choice while drunk or high and on a cell phone and Gawking a the climbers on El Cap.
( that last part happened to me twice in the valley - once in the car of the Yosemite Jailer going on shift after he picked me up hitchhiking back from a climb. He plowed right into a car at el cap bridge.)

No thanks.

dikhed

climber

State of fugue and disbelief

Jun 28, 2016 - 07:33am PT

both...back up if you have to

survival

Big Wall climber

Terrapin Station

Jun 28, 2016 - 07:38am PT

Save the hawt chix!!

Moof

Big Wall climber

Orygun

Jun 28, 2016 - 07:46am PT

No system I have seen reported is anywhere close to being capable of making ethical choices, these controversies are a farce.

At best cars will see objects and try to avoid a crash. Doing that is a big enough challenge to accomplish, and even harder to fully debug. Expecting more is a fool's errand with the available technology. Computers will have a big advantage in reaction time and lack of fatigue, those are the areas where autonomous cars will save lives. Impossible ethical choices come up very rarely, so even were a car capable of such choices it will make no significant life savings as a result.

I fully expect these systems to be timid enough that most folks will become frustrated and turn them off within weeks of purchasing a car. It will still be a nice feature for long road trips, for the elderly, the drunk, and disabled. But I would be surprised if more than 10-20% of autonomous cars sold will be driven mostly under computer control.

Dropline

Mountain climber

Somewhere Up There

Jun 28, 2016 - 07:54am PT

Within 50 years self driving cars will be the only cars allowed on public roads. If you want to drive a car yourself you'll have to go to a track.

Happiegrrrl2

Trad climber

Jun 28, 2016 - 07:57am PT

I didn't read the article(because the ethical dilemma issue is just drama journalism, I assume), but for those who don't believe auto-autos are coming soon, and will become the norm....I learned my lesson several years ago, when cel phones, with cameras, were the big new thing in Japan. I laughed it off as a camera-happy cultural stereotype. I even thought cel phones in and of themselves were kind of stupid.

Somewhere I heard or read something about how automated vehicles would revolutionize the trucking industry, and my perspective changed. The move to automation(and not just in driving) is about cost-savings. So long as there is big money at stake, cost savings win, and automated hauling vehicles don't get tired and need to pull off the road, don't cause a conundrum in HR when the "driver" racks up tickets, don't require vacation pay or retirement funding, and don't pad their expenses.

Newly licensed 16 year old drivers are going to be the last generation to "know" what it is like to be responsible for the decisions made while driving, and in ten years, the kids will laugh at Uncle Bob and Aunt Barb when they wax poetic about the thrill of driving.

Meanwhile, if you're a trucker, long haul or local, best to start saving for retirement, because your job is on the way to being terminated.

hooblie

climber

from out where the anecdotes roam

Jun 28, 2016 - 11:09am PT

presumably, courtesy figures prominently in the design of autonomous vehicle software.
you may have witnessed an unchecked courtesy feedback loop run amok.
if so, you recognise the importance of an emergency override,
circuit breaker type function. maybe federally mandated