What, if any, harm can a self-driving car do?
In this post, Fiona Woollard discusses their recent article in Journal of Applied Philosophy on the kinds of constraints against harm relevant to self-driving cars.
We are preparing for a future when most cars do not need a human driver. You will be able to get into your ‘self-driving car’, tell it where you want to go, and relax as it takes you there without further human input. This will be great! But there are difficult questions about how self-driving cars should behave. One answer is that self-driving cars should do whatever minimises harm. But perhaps harm is not the only thing that matters morally: perhaps it matters whether an agent does harm or merely allows harm, whether harm is strictly intended or a mere side effect, or who is responsible for the situation where someone must be harmed.
I argue in a recent article that these distinctions do matter morally but that care is needed when applying them to self-driving cars. Self-driving cars are very different from human agents. These differences may affect how the distinctions apply. (more…)
