Should we sacrifice ethics for autonomy?

The ethics behind fully autonomous vehicles...it's a big issue.

In fact, ethics are one reason why there is a long-withstanding debate behind actually allowing commercially available autonomous vehicles. Let's first start with some of the minor ethical issues.

For starters, autonomous vehicles can cut a great deal of jobs out the market, one of the more prominent examples being truck drivers. Currently, it is hard to go a mile on the highway without seeing an overwhelmingly big 18-wheeler driving it's route. With that being said, accidents involving these big trucks might be greater than one may imagine. Currently, companies such as Tesla are working to deliver autonomous trucks that reduce the need for truck drivers, and promise to deliver a safer way of transporting goods for companies. It also saves a great deal of $$$$ for the company in the long-run. In the end however, one must consider how ethical it is to take these jobs from the current truck drivers.

One should also consider the current Uber, Lyft, and taxi drivers that are in many cases making ends meet (e.g., paying bills, college students paying off tuition, etc,) with the money they make from such means. Is it really that ethical to possibly take away these jobs just for companies to save money and make it easier on the consumers?

My goal here is to not answer these questions, rather I wish to inform you of some overarching aspects behind the ethics for autonomy in vehicles. Nevertheless, there is one more aspect to the ethics of autonomous vehicles that prevails all. Consider the following situation:

Let's say a car is traveling down a road and approaches a situation where serious injury is inevitable. The car must decide whether to save the passenger in the vehicle along with the surrounding vehicles, or the pedestrian that is j-walking. In this situation, because the vehicle is driving itself, the person in the vehicle can no longer be at fault. But should a car really sacrifice the passenger in the vehicle at the expense of a pedestrian breaking the law?

When I polled this question to my Instagram followers, it resulted in an almost even split between saving the pedestrian versus the passenger. Clearly, this is a very muddy topic.

What choice do you believe the vehicle should make?

In reality, the whole legality of the situation is fuzzy. What happens when considering insurance, possible lawsuits, the vehicle manufacturers, and the programmers behind the artificial intelligence in the vehicle? In short, there are a myriad of details that must be considered when making fully autonomous vehicles.

If you struggled to find an answer to this dilemma like myself, then you may understand why the ethics behind autonomy in vehicles is still fuzzy. How does one code these aspects into the vehicle? How can the AI in the car pick-up on information to learn for situations like this? These are just some of the major setbacks and questions that contribute to deploying autonomous vehicles to the public.