Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormius
It's a good question. I guess there is a combination of emotions, past experiences, empathy. I am trying to imagine how do you weigh driver comfort, public safety, property damage concerns all together. Should my car drive into a large pothole, causing my discomfort and possible damage to avoid hitting a rabbit or a ball or what? Should it drive through a huge puddle and soak pedestrians waiting for a bus? I know that a drive by soaking of pedestrians is wrong, but what is more or less wrong? And that is assuming my cars computer has all of the data to make that decision. I guess there is some conscience aspects involved too. I might be "okay" hitting a rabbit, but not a cat or dog, but how does my cars computer quantify how much I want to avoid those things? Enough to allow damage to mine or somebody else's car? Should it weigh the life of an animal vs a human maybe having their leg broken?
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These trivialities are actually an argument in favor of autonomous vehicles. If they can dramatically reduce human injuries and fatalities to the point that the biggest concern of driving is whether you drive over a pothole, soak pedestrians, or run over an animal then they will be one of the most important technological advances in recent history. None of that stuff is remotely as important as the reduction in stopping distance and the decline of drunk and fatigued drivers that would come with self driving cars. Even imperfect autonomous vehicles have the potential to be miles safer than cars controlled by human drivers.
As for specific scenarios I assume the car will do what humans try to do and that's prioritize their own safety and attempt to stop as soon as possible when something comes into their path of travel. If someone walks in front of your car it'd try to stop as quickly as possible and swerve if there's a clear path. And if there isn't then the person gets hit just like they do now. And again, no matter what it does, simply by reducing the stopping distance by 30-50% they'll lower both the number and the seriousness of these kinds of incidents. An autonomous car driving 30-50 km/h would've likely made a decision and come to a complete stop before a human would even have time to press the brake pedal in response to something in front of the car.