Abstract
The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbable dilemma-like scenarios. This article provides a broad overview of realistic ethical issues related to self-driving vehicles. Some of the major topics covered are as follows: Strong opinions for and against driverless cars may give rise to severe social and political conflicts. A low tolerance for accidents caused by driverless vehicles may delay the introduction of driverless systems that would substantially reduce the risks. Trade-offs will arise between safety and other requirement on the road traffic system. Over-reliance on the swift collision-avoiding reactions of self-driving vehicles can induce people to take dangerous actions, such as stepping out in front of a car, relying on its fast braking. Children travelling alone can violate safety instructions such as the use of seatbelts. Digital information about routes and destinations can be used to convey commercial and political messages to car users. If fast passage can be bought, then socio-economic segregation of road traffic may result. Terrorists and other criminals can hack into a vehicle and make it crash. They can also use self-driving vehicles for instance to carry bombs to their designed places of detonation or to wreak havoc on a country’s road system.
Highlights
Self-driving vehicles have been predicted to radically change our patterns of travelling and transportation (Gruel & Stanford, 2016; Pernestål & Kristoffersson, 2019)
It calls for major efforts to anticipate and evaluate social changes that may potentially accompany the introduction of the new technology
We turn to the important ethical issues that arise from the possibility of external control of autonomous vehicles (“Sect. 5”) and from the large amounts of person-related data that will be collected in vehicles and road management systems (“Sect. 6”)
Summary
Self-driving vehicles have been predicted to radically change our patterns of travelling and transportation (Gruel & Stanford, 2016; Pernestål & Kristoffersson, 2019). There will probably be a decades-long period of gradual introduction, in which fully automated operation of road vehicles will only be allowed in limited segments of the road system, such as specially designated highways or highway lanes, and small areas such as parking facilities where velocities will be kept low (Kyriakidis et al, 2019) This will be a momentous technological transformation. It calls for major efforts to anticipate and evaluate social changes that may potentially accompany the introduction of the new technology. As part of these endeavours, ethical and public policy aspects of the technology itself and of various scenarios for its introduction need to be explored (Palm & Hansson, 2006).
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