THE MORAL ALGORITHM

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The Moral Algorithm \ Beyond the trolley problem – the day‐to‐day morals of driving BEYOND THE TROLLEY PROBLEM – THE DAY‐TO‐DAY MORALS OF DRIVING The trolley problem has garnered the greatest attention as it makes for interesting headlines about AVs making life and death decisions. However, such decisions are relatively rare and one of the main policy reasons behind AVs is to make them even less so. Much of the focus at present is therefore on ensuring that AVs are designed to minimise the risk of ever being in a crash scenario. 9
The Moral Algorithm \ Beyond the trolley problem – the day‐to‐day morals of driving Eric Chan at TS Catapult states: There are ethical decisions being taken now in terms of “ how cautiously you want your system to behave, or how many layers of redundancy you put into the system, all of which determine what your system will and won’t do. These decisions ultimately depend upon the level of risk that we as a society are prepared for an AV to take. ” If the principal selling point of AVs is their contribution to increases in safety, the level of risk we are willing to accept may actually be quite low. However, everyone involved in AV development agrees that it is almost impossible to conceive of a transport system with a 100% safety record. No matter how sophisticated the algorithms, there will always be occasions where something unexpected happens and an AV cannot stop in time. In other words, physics will always win. The relevant laws will be Newton’s laws of motion. Moreover, although safety is of paramount importance, it will be important to widen thinking about the moral algorithm to encompass the many lesser decisions that are made as part of a journey. —— Kieran Laird, Principal Associate in the Public Law & Regulation team at Gowling WLG says: We can conceptualise a pyramid of moral issues “ that AVs will need to deal with. Major decisions in relation to human life – such as those outlined in the trolley problem – are at the top, but are relatively rare. Below these are decisions regarding compliance with road traffic rules and, at the bottom of the pyramid but still hugely important, matters of driver behaviour in relation to other road users which will make up the majority of moral decisions that an AV needs to make as part of a journey. ” For example, AVs will need to decide whether to enter an area marked with chevrons and bordered by a solid white line in order to pass a parked car, or break the speed limit to get out of the way of an ambulance. These sorts of actions involve breaking road traffic laws in the interests of a greater good such as keeping traffic flowing or giving priority to emergency vehicles. The moral algorithm will also need to be capable of dealing with countless situations which do not entail a breach of the rules of the road, but do concern the interaction of vehicles with others using the same congested road space. These are currently matters of driver choice, and are reflected in different driving styles on the road – including, for instance, how aggressively a vehicle accelerates or brakes, how sharply it changes lanes or performs other manoeuvres, how much room it allows to other vehicles to do the same things, and so on. These are moral questions because they concern where drivers choose to place themselves on a spectrum between the pure maximisation of self-interest (getting from A to B as quickly as possible) and an altruistic deferral to the interests of other road users. In practice, the same individual may well adopt a mix of styles, or drive differently on different days as mood or circumstances dictate. AVs will, however, need to be programmed to deal consistently with these real world driving issues. Examples of good practice include ‘zip-fastener’ merging of slow traffic, taking turns where traffic lights have failed at an intersection, giving way to other vehicles emerging from side roads, stopping at zebra crossings, slowing down for horses and allowing room to cyclists when overtaking. In practice, the programming of moral algorithms in this respect is likely to be evolutionary. Heiko Schilling of TomTom comments: “ We must move onto the question of how well the AV has to work. Does it need to be 100% correct, and does every scenario have to be tested? If this is the case, then there will never be an AV on the road. ” 10
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THE MORAL ALGORITHM

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