That one blog post about a self-driving car's decision cost me an hour of sleep

I read this piece from some tech journalist last Tuesday about how a self-driving taxi in San Francisco chose to hit a dog instead of swerve into oncoming traffic. The writer was all like 'the algorithm made the right call' but that just got me thinking, who gets to decide what the 'right call' even is? It's not like the car can weigh the value of a life against a lawsuit or whatever. Has anyone else seen this kind of thinking and just felt uneasy about letting companies like Waymo make these calls without any real public vote?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenix_bailey1mo ago

Oh great, so now my toaster is gonna have to choose between burning my bagel or setting off the smoke alarm while I sleep. Waymo's out here making moral philosophers look like amateurs. At this rate, I'm expecting my Roomba to have a crisis about whether to vacuum up a spider or just leave it be. Who knew we'd be outsourcing life-or-death decisions to the same people who brought us the self-driving car that got confused by a tumbleweed?

logan6581mo ago

Hang on, your neighbor actually ADMITTED they flip a coin? Like, for real? Dude, I can't believe someone from the actual ethics team would say that out loud at a barbecue. That's wild. I mean, I've always kinda suspected these companies just make stuff up as they go, but hearing it straight from someone who works there is a whole different level. So basically they're writing a bunch of fancy reports nobody reads and just rolling dice when it actually matters. That honestly makes more sense than I want to admit. Your neighbor better hope his boss never sees this thread.

drew_hart41mo ago

Funny you mention the tumbleweed. My neighbor actually works on Waymo's ethics team and even he admitted at a barbecue last summer that they basically flip a coin on paper then dress it up as philosophy.