Ethics

As developers, we are often one of the last lines of defense against potentially dangerous and unethical practices.

We’re approaching a time where software will drive the vehicle that transports your family to soccer practice. There are already AI programs that help doctors diagnose disease. It’s not hard to imagine them recommending prescription drugs soon, too.

The more software continues to take over every aspect of our lives, the more important it will be for us to take a stand and ensure that our ethics are ever-present in our code.

Since that day, I always try to think twice about the effects of my code before I write it. I hope that you will too.

Here are a handful of scenarios to think about when considering the sticky ethical circumstances self-driving cars could find themselves in:

A self-driving vehicle is surrounded — on one side by a group of pedestrians and, on the other, by just one person. Does it give the larger group more space than the one person to lower the risk of someone stepping in front of it? Does doing so potentially increase the chances of the one being struck?
What about a car being designed to mimic a human preference for giving a large truck passing on the highway more berth just to make its passengers feel safer? Does that increase or decrease the likelihood of striking something on the other side of the car?
If self-driving cars are programmed to never hit a pedestrian under any circumstance, do crosswalks — or any other spot on a street — become jammed with pedestrians walking against traffic, knowing these cars will not strike them?
What about animals? If a dog dashes into the street, or a deer, or a squirrel, does it automatically hit it, or speed up or brake suddenly — to veer into another lane —potentially increasing its chances of hitting another vehicle?
Could fully autonomous cars become so prevalent and smart that in reacting to traffic accidents or congestion, they flood into neighborhoods not designed for such heavy traffic? As Patrick Lin, director of the Ethics and Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, wrote in Forbes this summer, “This could increase risk to children playing on these streets, lower property values if road noise is louder, and create other externalities.