Machine Ethics and Automated Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of integrating moral decision-making into fully automated vehicles, emphasizing the need for research in machine ethics to handle unavoidable crash scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of moral behavior for automated vehicles and advocates for research in machine ethics and moral modeling for safer autonomous driving.

Findings

Highlights ethical challenges in automated vehicle decision-making

Argues for research in machine ethics to improve moral behavior

Discusses applications of moral modeling in autonomous driving

Abstract

Road vehicle travel at a reasonable speed involves some risk, even when using computer-controlled driving with failure-free hardware and perfect sensing. A fully-automated vehicle must continuously decide how to allocate this risk without a human driver's oversight. These are ethical decisions, particularly in instances where an automated vehicle cannot avoid crashing. In this chapter, I introduce the concept of moral behavior for an automated vehicle, argue the need for research in this area through responses to anticipated critiques, and discuss relevant applications from machine ethics and moral modeling research.