On 14 July 2016 at 18:13, David Lochrin <[email protected]> wrote: > > <snip> > The core question is to what extent people are to be held responsible for > their actions. Is a driverless car which kills someone the responsibility > of the owner, the maunfacturer, the agency which approved it, or nobody? >
I think we can answer this. Consider the simple cruise control feature of modern cars. If you engage it, then carelessly collide with somebody, you cannot reasonably argue that the manufacturer or government is to blame for allowing the tool. Now consider an advanced cruise control that provides steering and breaking in some circumstances. Again, we can simply state the driver is responsible if they do not take adequate care in its operation. Extrapolate to a circumstance where the car effectively does all the driving and the person in the front seat is really just a passenger, yet they retain a steering wheel, brakes etc. Even if the driver lets the car drive itself 100% of the time, we can still hold the driver responsible for making that choice should the robot driver drive poorly because we expect the human to be supervising. Extrapolate yet again to a future where self-driving cars have dramatically lowered road crash incidence, and everyone places almost complete faith in their superior driving ability. Perhaps the mechanism is as reliable as an automatic transmission is today. We don't insist on a manual clutch in case the auto transmission fails. We, rightly, expect it to perform flawlessly all the time. But on rare occasions, auto transmissions do fail. And it is possible that failure might cause an accident. Such a circumstance needn't hold the manufacturer liable, if they were not negligent, and would be highly unlikely to see the driver charged, as an unforeseen mechanical failure of such rarity can't be readily blamed on the driver's negligence. For calculations of fault, etc. we would likely agree the driver's insurance must pay for repairs, medical bills etc. But being 'at fault' does not mean the driver was negligent. So I can see a circumstance where insurers absorb the risk of a failed robot driver mechanism as part of the bundle of risks they insure against. And I can also see them clamouring to do so, if indeed the robot drivers prove safer over time. Best regards, Michael Skeggs _______________________________________________ Link mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
