A Matter of Travel

I saw this article about how autonomous vehicles will change everything a few weeks ago.  I meant to write about it then, but then Amazon distracted me.  But I did not forget.  Not this guy.

The basic gist of the article is that, as both self-driving cars and electrical power systems grow, coupled with the instant-ordering supplied by smart phones, it will change how people choose to get their transportation.  Instead of owning, we will rent on an as-needed basis.  The author goes on to predict that, at the inflection point of long battery life and reliable autonomy, this behavior change will happen very quickly.  "A matter of months" quickly.

Autonomous Morality

Ego Morality

Today's topic is how 'morality' will be programmed into autonomous vehicles.  There has been some recurring press on this issue over the last month and I've had some time to formulate my thoughts on this topic.  It is tough as, like most of first-world humanity, I think I'm moral but I've never faced the really tough life-and-death moral decisions that put that assertion to the test.  Most of my morality training has come from Star Trek, and that's not bad, but it is fairly basic and presumes that I'm sitting on the bridge of a star ship in orbit, debating the gray areas of the Prime Directive.  I hope I never have to even that.  Should it happen though, I'm pretty sure that if I have the time to think through the decision, I'll do the right thing.

But, that's the catch: 'if I have the time to think it through'.  The area where this is most likely to happen in my current life path is when I drive.  It is easily the most dangerous thing that I do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis (I ski and take some bigger risks there, but am only able to get in about twelve days a year).  Driving is a task that, when it goes south, will happen too quickly for my frontal lobe to override my learned motor skills and lizard brain reflexes.  Reflexes that have been fine tuned over hundreds of thousands of years to keep the individual alive.