Away from Trolley Problems and Toward Risk Management

TL;DR

This paper critiques the focus on trolley problem scenarios in automated vehicle ethics, proposing risk management as a more nuanced and practical framework for ethical decision-making in real-world crash situations.

Contribution

It introduces risk management as an alternative to trolley problem scenarios, emphasizing the importance of handling crash risk and uncertainty in ethical decision-making for autonomous vehicles.

Findings

Trolley problem focus is limited and may misrepresent real-world ethics.

Risk management offers a more nuanced approach to vehicle ethics.

Ethical dimensions of risk management are discussed.

Abstract

As automated vehicles receive more attention from the media, there has been an equivalent increase in the coverage of the ethical choices a vehicle may be forced to make in certain crash situations with no clear safe outcome. Much of this coverage has focused on a philosophical thought experiment known as the "trolley problem," and substituting an automated vehicle for the trolley and the car's software for the bystander. While this is a stark and straightforward example of ethical decision making for an automated vehicle, it risks marginalizing the entire field if it is to become the only ethical problem in the public's mind. In this chapter, I discuss the shortcomings of the trolley problem, and introduce more nuanced examples that involve crash risk and uncertainty. Risk management is introduced as an alternative approach, and its ethical dimensions are discussed.