Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars

Magazine article, 2018

As an envisaged future of transportation, self-driving cars are being
discussed from various perspectives, including social, economical,
engineering, computer science, design, and ethics. On the one hand,
self-driving cars present new engineering problems that are being
gradually successfully solved. On the other hand, social and ethical
problems are typically being presented in the form of an idealized
unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called trolley problem,
which is grossly misleading. We argue that an applied engineering
ethical approach for the development of new technology is what
is needed; the approach should be applied, meaning that it should
focus on the analysis of complex real-world engineering problems.
Software plays a crucial role for the control of self-driving cars;
therefore, software engineering solutions should seriously handle
ethical and social considerations. In this paper we take a closer
look at the regulative instruments, standards, design, and implementations
of components, systems, and services and we present
practical social and ethical challenges that have to be met, as well
as novel expectations for software engineering.autio