Self-Driving Car (Sdcs): A Case Study

In the immeasurable era of technology, Self-Driving cars (SDCs) are a substantial invention of automated assistance in driving. Along with flawless driving efficiency that has the potential to enormously reduce the number of road traffic accidents, the concept of SDCs has also brought back ethics and morals into the world of vehicular driving. However, as every major invention, SDCs can be a potential threat as well. There is still a long way to go in terms of progress before SDCs can be made ethical and acceptable to the society. Concurrently, dire efforts and suggestions are made almost on a daily basis to overcome the barriers surrounding the ethical use of SDCs.
One of the biggest obstacle for SDCs to be ethical and acceptable is complex decision making. The “trolley problem” scenario, Patrick Lin (2015) explains as making an intricate decision in a situation where it is unavoidable to harm someone, is an example of the ethical complexities that SDCs will have …show more content…
One of the prime endeavor would be to follow the theory of Deontology according to which all actions in a situation depend on the intentions rather than the consequences. Therefore, for a robot to be ethically responsive, there should be moral instructions programmed into it. Some examples include codes that restrict a machine from killing, causing harm, obeying the law, etc. Along with exceptional programming, the other major attempt to accomplishment of an ethical robot is a general consensus amongst a panel of experts including engineers, philosophers, architects, and other connoisseur on ethical principles. The simultaneous inclusion of ideas from all different areas of science and morality is the best possible chance for human beings to produce a machine that is closely analogous with