CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 189Autonomous Vehicle Technology and SafetyEthics and Social Impacts of AIPhilosophical Ethics and Theory

Why Ethics Matters for Autonomous Cars

Open access
Lin, Patrick·2015·Autonomes Fahren
DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-45854-9_4
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

If motor vehicles are to be truly autonomous and able to operate responsibly on our roads, they will need to replicate – or do better than – the human decision-making process. But some decisions are more than just a mechanical application of traffic laws and plotting a safe path. They seem to require a sense of ethics, and this is a notoriously difficult capability to reduce into algorithms for a computer to follow.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/978-3-662-45854-9_4

Cites

6 of 6 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • It may take more than 30 seconds-and will at minimum take 2 seconds-for a human being to regain situational awareness when required to do so.

    “It may take more than 30 seconds - and will at minimum take 2 seconds - for a human being to regain situational awareness when required to do so”

    From When human beings are like drunk robots: Driverless vehicles, ethics, and the future of transport (2017) · cites this paper as Lin, 2015, p. 72

    Section 4.1.1 says simulation experiments suggest drivers may need up to 40 seconds to regain situation awareness, supporting the possibility of more than 30 seconds. It does not establish a two-second minimum: its 1–2-second figure refers to reaction time in typical accident scenarios, not regaining situation awareness. No page number is provided in the supplied passage. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • The trolley problem will inevitably arise once enough autonomous vehicles are on the roads, wherein the computer must decide who lives or dies when death is unavoidable.

    “This fact explains philosophers' fascination with the question as to how autonomous vehicles should resolve this 'trolley problem' that will inevitably arise once enough autonomous vehicles are on the roads, wherein the computer must decide who lives or dies in circumstances where the death of someone is unavoidable (Lin, 2015, p. 78).”

    From When human beings are like drunk robots: Driverless vehicles, ethics, and the future of transport (2017) · cites this paper as Lin, 2015

    Section 4.2.4 says a trolley problem may occur with autonomous vehicles and illustrates a car choosing between actions that would kill different people. Section 4.3.2 says an accident may be unavoidable. Neither passage says such a dilemma will inevitably arise once enough vehicles are on the roads; the claim turns a possibility into a certainty. (LLM, conf=0.87)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 11

  1. Associated Press. ATM 'glitch' gives $37,000 to lucky homeless man. Daily Mail. http://www. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2596977/ATM-glitch-gives-OVER-37-000-homeless-man-cash-re- quested-140.html (2014). Accessed 8 July 2014
  2. Edmonds, D.: Would You Kill the Fat Man? The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong. Princeton University Press, Princeton (2014)
  3. Foot, P.: The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect. Oxford Review 5, 5-15 (1967)
  4. Garza, A.: 'Look Ma, no hands!': wrinkles and wrecks in the age of autonomous vehicles. New England Law Review 46(3), 581-616 (2012)
  5. Goodall, N. J.: Ethical decision making during automated vehicle crashes. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (forthcoming)
  6. Goodall, N. J.: Vehicle automation and the duty to act. In: Proceedings of the 21st World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, 7-11 September 2014, Detroit, Michigan (forth- coming)
  7. Google: The latest chapter for the self-driving car: mastering city street driving. http://googleblog. blogspot.co.at/2014/04/the-latest-chapter-for-self-driving-car.html (2014). Accessed 8 July 2014
  8. Gurney, J.: Sue my car, not me: products liability and accidents involving autonomous vehicles. Journal of Law, Technology and Policy 2, 247-277 (2013)
  9. Lin, P.: Why the drone wars matter for automated cars. Lecture presented at Proceedings in Automated Driving, Stanford Law School, 12 December 2013. http://stanford.io/1jeIQuw. Accessed 8 July 2014
  10. Mui, C. and Carroll, P.: Driverless Cars: Trillions Are Up For Grabs. Cornerloft Press, Seattle (2013)
  11. Wu, S.: Unmanned vehicles and US product liability law. Journal of Law, Information & Science 21(2), 234-254 (2012)

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Lin, P.
Affiliations
California Polytechnic State University (US)
Corresponding author
Lin, Patrick
ORCID
Lin, Patrick
Venue
Autonomes Fahren
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published
2015
Pages
69-85
DOI
10.1007/978-3-662-45854-9_4
OpenAlex
W4238827160
Cited by
189
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 22 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 8
FWCI
35.10
Type
book chapter
Language
de
Open access
Licence
Locations
Springer eBooks (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Engineering › Automotive Engineering › Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophical Ethics and Theory
Keywords
autonomous vehicles, ethics, ethical decision-making, algorithmic decision-making, human drivers, traffic law, road safety, machine ethics

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review