While autonomous vehicles (AVs) are being heralded as the next major technological development that will revolutionize the way humans live, it will necessitate a change in the law, public policy and ethics, among other areas. In her Daily Journal article “Asimov’s Laws and the Rise of Self-Driving Cars,” Attorney Patice Gore discusses the impact AVs will have on vehicle safety.
Developers of AV technology argue that AVs will be designed to minimize the loss of human life and will abide by Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics (recently remerging in the 2004 movie “I, Robot”). Specifically, the first of Asimov’s three laws, which states that a “robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
Gore argues that even if the estimates of increased driving safety are correct and AVs are indeed programmed not to injure humans, situations will arise in which an AV cannot avoid a fatal accident. The manner in which AV computers address those types of situations is a major area of concern for skeptics of autonomous technology.
“This unknown variable – how society will feel about how AVs respond to life-threatening emergency situations – further complicates the establishment of concrete guidelines for AVs to abide,” Gore writes. “The task of formulating a generally-accepted decision-making framework may be the most difficult and complicated aspect of developing autonomous technology and may be AV’s largest roadblock yet.”
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