Effects of autonomous vehicles on society

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What are autonomous vehicles

Fully autonomous vehicles are vehicles that can drive around without any human interaction. Research on computer controlled vehicles began in 1984 with the first vehicle, Navlab 1,built in 1986.

Driver assist technologies

Although full self driving is only at a trial stage, many driver assist technologies have been implemented that have improved safety and usability e.g.

Parking sensors that beep if you get close to something
Lane departure warnings that alert drivers they are veering out of their lane on a motorway
Collision risk detection that can automatically slow the car if you get too close to the car in front
Driver monitoring systems that can detect if the driver is focussed on the road by tracking their eyes

Ethics of crashing

A key ethical dilemma with autonomous cars is what to do in the event of an unavoidable crash. You can work your way through a series of scenarios at https://www.moralmachine.net/. These challenge you to consider a scenario where an autonomous vehicle is out of control and headed toward a pedestrian crossing and decide whether certain factors should matter when deciding what to do. Factors such as, whether the passengers of the car should be protected, whether it should take the option that saves the most lives, whether it matters if the people are crossing at a green man, whether it matters if people are younger or older, fitter or fatter, higher earning or lower earning.

Click the image below to visit the moral machine website.

Testing and bringing them on the roads

Tesla invited consumers to become beta testers of its 'Full self driving' mode. While this says it can navigate through streets the driver is still reuired to keep their hands on the wheel. There are obvious safety concerns with software that may not always function as expected. While customers can consent to be beta testers, the people they share the roads with cant. This raises ethical uestions about how testing should be done.

Elon Musk has said that by writing stories that dissuade people from using self driving cars or regulators from approving them, reporters are killing people. His argument is that deaths in the present day will be more than offset by lives saved when we have fully effective autonomous vehicle technology much sooner. This may be mathematically true, but does that make it wrong to be more cautious in the present day?

Other concerns

If self driving vehicles become mainstream then it could lead to a significant loss of employment for truckers cab drivers, delivery drivers and more.

Self driving cars come with a large amount of internet connected devices. The implications of what could happen if self driving cars are hacked are enormous ranging from data theft to causing the car to malfunction while driving.

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