OK, we will just have to agree to disagree. Personally I can think of a 1000 reasons why a driver would want to swerve.
As for AI, I hope you’re right about machines evolving intelligence. I’m not quite that optimistic.
But thank you for the civil conversation.
The humans have had a say. We’ve been driving for a long time now. We come with built in murder algorithms too. About 1.25 million die and 20-50 million injured per year in auto wrecks. (For comparison, the entire Korean War is listed at 1.2 million dead over 4 years, Vietnam War was around 83,000 / year.)
The philosophical debate of AI and the trolley problem is just a diversion to make humans feel superior and avoid thinking about their own evils. The point is to put someone or something in charge for whom the ‘harm’ of killing people is considered worse than the ‘harm’ of taking 2 minutes longer to get to wherever you’re going; for whom the ‘good’ of driving safely and paying attention is considered better than the ‘good’ of being the first to comment on a tweet.
No-win situations like the trolley problem don’t matter. There’s no right solution, and without even addressing it at all we could make huge improvements just by addressing the majority of the problems that can be easily solved. Other than sudden vehicle failure (tire blowout, etc.) and occasional weather problems, almost all of the top causes of accidents could be eliminated.
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