Name: What moral decisions should driverless cars make?
Uploaded: 2017-08-22T19:40:47Z
Duration: 13 min 26 s
Description: Should your driverless car kill you if it means saving five pedestrians? In this primer on the social dilemmas of driverless cars, Iyad Rahwan explores how the technology will challenge our morality and explains his work collecting data from real people on the ethical trade-offs we're willing (and not willing) to make.

Iyad Rahwan: What moral decisions should driverless cars make?

What moral decisions should driverless cars make?

Should your driverless car kill you if it means saving five pedestrians? In this primer on the social dilemmas of driverless cars, Iyad Rahwan explores how the technology will challenge our morality and explains his work collecting data from real people on the ethical trade-offs we're willing (and not willing) to make.

Driverless cars could prevent up to 90 percent of the 1.2 million annual global traffic deaths by reducing human error. Yet society faces a tough ethical dilemma: should cars protect their passengers or minimize total harm, even at the passenger’s expense? People say they want cars to save the most lives, but few want to ride in vehicles that might sacrifice them. Solving these challenges requires collective agreement and a willingness to face uncomfortable choices about public safety.