Georgia Institute Of Technology

• CS 6603-O01

• Ethical Autonomous Vehicles 10/26/2022 1. Of the three “moral judgment” algorithms, Mercedes-Benz’s claim fall under “protectionist algorithm”. 2. If we replaced the school bus with another self-driving car running this same “protectionist” algorithm, the outcome of each algorithm will change as follows: a. Car algorithm: humanitarian – outcome will change positively i. The reason is that the car will try to avoid a collision that costs the most lives/injuries, it will go straight to have a frontal collision with the school bus like showing in the video. On the other hand, the school bus will intend to drive to its right hand to protect the lives on this vehicle. So they will just miss each other and avoid the original collision that the car intended to do. b. Car algorithm: protectionist – outcome is not sure unless these two autonomous vehicles could communicate with each other. i. The reason is that the car will try to avoid a collision that costs the most lives/injuries inside of it, it will go to its left without communicating with the school bus. On the other hand, the school bus will intend to drive to its right hand to protect the lives on this vehicle. So they will have another collision. But we are not sure if the result will be better or worse than it when the school bus does nothing. ii. If these two vehicles could communicate, things may change. The car and school bus could combine their algorithm and make a decision that maximize both of their outcome. iii. Communicating vehicles mean all passengers data are public to any other road users. And it means where they are, where they are heading to or even other more private information is always exposed. It invades their privacy and is not ethical. c. Car algorithm: profit – outcome will change positively i. To avoid dealing with physical and psychological trauma of children, the car will jump out of the bridge. However, the school bus, like mentioned above, will turn its right to avoid hurting people inside of it. That will cause another collision between car and the school bus. There might be children hurt, but the car will not jump into the river either. So the situation is better. 3. “Humanitarian algorithm” is the Tesla approach closest to: a. The Tesla car would not retake control of the wheel and swerve away from a group of people (or even brake), even if the driver were deliberately driving into them. What if the driver is driving into them to avoid a car accident, if he could not do it, it means he may get injured or died in the accident to “protect” the group of people. So this is not “protectionist algorithm”. b. This driver can be very rich and buy a very expensive insurance. But according to Tesla’s current