Self-Driving Cars Will Likely Have To Deal With The Harsh Reality Of Who Lives And Who Dies

While the AI present in today's experimental self-driving cars can navigate city streets, change lanes, avoid accidents and are for the most part fairly competent "drivers", what happens when it comes to an "us versus them" scenario? What if a self-driving car is presented with no-win situation -- no matter what the outcome of a collision, someone will likely die? Does the self-driving car protect its passengers at all costs with no regard for the lives of others, or should the car instead put its passengers in harm's way to avoid a higher number of casualties that could result from a collision with pedestrians or other motorists? That's the subject of a new study published in Science, entitled, "The Social Dilemma of Autonomous Vehicles." The survey results showed that people overwhelmingly decided that self-driving cars should take a "utilitarian approach" in which casualties are minimized, even it means that passengers within the car must have their lives sacrificed for the greater good.