Real-world ethics for self-driving cars

Paper in proceeding, 2020

Ethical and social problems of the emerging technology of selfdriving cars can best be addressed through an applied engineeringethical approach. However, currently social and ethical problemsare typically being presented in terms of an idealized unsolvabledecision-making problem, the so-called Trolley Problem. Instead,we propose that ethical analysis should focus on the study of ethicsof complex real-world engineering problems. As software plays acrucial role in the control of self-driving cars, software engineeringsolutions should handle actual ethical and social considerations. Wetake a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design,and implementations of components, systems, and services and wepresent practical social and ethical challenges that must be met inthe ecology of the socio-technological system of self-driving carswhich implies novel expectations for software engineering in theautomotive industry.