Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Friday, September 5, 2014

Here’s a Terrible Idea: Robot Cars With Adjustable Ethics Settings

By Patrick Lin
Wired
Originally posted August 18, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

So why not let the user select the car’s “ethics setting”? The way this would work is one customer may set the car (which he paid for) to jealously value his life over all others; another user may prefer that the car values all lives the same and minimizes harm overall; yet another may want to minimize legal liability and costs for herself; and other settings are possible.

Plus, with an adjustable ethics dial set by the customer, the manufacturer presumably can’t be blamed for hard judgment calls, especially in no-win scenarios, right? In one survey, 44 percent of the respondents preferred to have a personalized ethics setting, while only 12 percent thought the manufacturer should predetermine the ethical standard. So why not give customers what they want?

The entire story is here.