Google, Tesla, and other companies (including Apple, according to some rumors) a
ID: 392462 • Letter: G
Question
Google, Tesla, and other companies (including Apple, according to some rumors) are working on technology that would allow for fully autonomous or self-driving cars. Recently one of Google’s test vehicles had a collision with a bus when making a turn at an intersection. This event demonstrated the potential dangers of driverless cars and highlighted the fact that safety concerns will still be a problem even if computers are in charge of our cars.
Imagine that you are on the design team for the software that will be installed in a self-driving car manufactured by Company X. The question that is currently facing your team is what to do in a situation when a pedestrian steps into a crosswalk directly into the path of the self-driving car. The particular situation involves a narrow road with only one lane of traffic in each direction and traffic is heavy but moving at about 50 miles per hour in both directions. There is also a sidewalk on both sides of the road that is filled with pedestrians. There is a row of large telephone poles between the car traffic and the pedestrians on the sidewalk. In this scenario the driverless vehicle is expected to have time to slow down to only about 45 miles per hour at impact with the pedestrian. There would also be time to swerve into a telephone pole. It is expected that each of these scenarios would result in at least one fatality as can be seen from the table below:
Course of Action: Potential Fatalities
Apply brake and strike the pedestrian 1 pedestrian
Apply brake and swerve into telephone pole Occupant of the self-driving vehicle
Use the Revised 8-Step Model to describe your decision making process as it relates to the scenario above. Then, based on your analysis, indicate which course of action the software should be programmed to take.
Finally, would your recommendation change if you knew that you were going to be the occupant of the self-driving vehicle? Why or why not?
Explanation / Answer
Decision making process steps
1. Identification of the purpose- To minimise the impact of accident and subsequent loss of life ( lives) and damages to the vehicle or other property.
2. Information gathering - Assessement of response time and possibility of its reduction and improvement of vehicle response, possibility of pre identification of unusual movement towards the road for early action, assessment of collateral damages if the vehicle strikes the poles. Assessment of damages to the vehicle in all cases
3.Principles for judging the alternatives - Minimising the prospects of loss of life / lives and other damages.
4. Choices - To improve the software to detect the unusual movement of a padestrian towards the road and take proactive action ( It will increase response time and reduce and minimise the force of impact). To let the software apply the brakes and swerves the vehicle. To apply the break and hit the person.
5. Alternatives - Make changes to the software if possible. If not, then program it to hit the pedastrian, as it will cause a single potential fatality, while swerving may result in possibility of fatality of many others on the sidewalk besides the potential fatality within the vehicle.
6. Choice of most appropriate option - Making change to the software is the first option. Second option in absence of the possibility of first is to make it hit the person.
7. Execute the results - Putting the decisions in action.
8. Evaualte the results -The results will be better observed if the first decision is taken. It will lead to further changes that may increase the safety of vehicle, occupants and passersby.
No. The recommendations will not be different as all possibe alternatives to minimise the cause and effects of the impact have already been discussed and implemented in the final solution. Any event that is beyond the scope of action capability of the machines can be termed as the one ahead of frontiers of possibilities.
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