Advantages/Disadvantages of self-driving cars

Adv

  • Reduces human error
  • Sensors are more reliable than human senses
  • No learners
  • Doesn’t get tired
  • Roads could be narrower
  • No road signs needed
  • Can safely travel much faster
  • No windshield needed, could be designed for efficiency rather than including things like mirrors.
  • Less congestion
  • More efficient routing
  • Can’t break road laws
  • Can all be fully electric

Disadv

  • Ethical issues – can AI pick life or death
  • Who is at fault in the event of an accident
  • Disaster responses or unknown events might be handled poorly compared to a human driver
  • Will take away human jobs (drivers)
  • Reduces human freedoms
  • Fail safe systems must be very good

Ethical Bias

  • People have biases towards and against certain characteristics
  • These biases could easily be passed onto machines
  • How should machines make tough ethical decisions

Algorithmic Bias

  • If a system is taught to always assume a cyclist wears a helmet, how should it manage a cyclist without a helmet? It wouldn’t recognise the helmetless cyclist.

Do these biases matter? How much?

Ethics