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Re:Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Oth... by logfromblammo on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @02:23PM (#10154583)
If the cars can communicate with each other enough to negotiate which one should drive off the cliff, they can communicate with each other enough to negotiate an emergency stop for both vehicles, or even plan out a more survivable wreck.

The only way to enforce the limited choice domain you presented is for the automated drivers to be operating the vehicles unsafely prior to the collision event. In that case, never mind the other car, because either car could be forced off the cliff due to a goat standing in the middle of the road.

Also, I'll program my driver to believe that its car always contains MAXINT passengers.

Re:Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Oth... by acheron on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @03:49PM (#10155213)
Since this is Google, the passengers probably only count if they have Google+ accounts.
Re:Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Oth... by logfromblammo on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @04:15PM (#10155363)
I fail to see how evaluating ( 0 > 0 ) would help the driver programs make a decision.~
Re:Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Oth... by sschueller on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @03:38PM (#10155129)
Would it be ethical to program an autonomous car to drive its passengers off a cliff to save for example a normal bus full of children? Would it not be the most logical and ethical thing for a computer to do in such a situation?
Re:Google Says It’s Not the Driverless Car’s Fault. It’s Oth... by logfromblammo on Tuesday September 01, 2015 @04:39PM (#10155517)
The problem with these hypothetical questions is that they all require some form of clairvoyance to ask them.

How do you know the kids would be saved by your sacrifice? How do you know they would die from your selfishness? How do you know that bus isn't actually filled with violent and dangerous felons being transferred to supermax while awaiting execution, and the guards on it aren't also corrupt to the core?

You don't have that extra information at the time the decision would need to be made.

The logical and ethical thing for the computer to do would be to switch over to emergency collision avoidance mode, and try to avoid damage to the one vehicle it can actually control. The authority to instruct a driver to put its passengers at risk would have to be vested in some sort of traffic control program capable of recognizing when the selfish behavior of individual driver programs might result in more damage and injury overall.

And that's a whole new can of worms.