As technology advances, new ethical challenges often arise. While our world is constantly evolving and presenting new ethical challenges, technology presents a special problem because the pace of the changes it introduces is so rapid. There is no time to gain true perspective; new technology suddenly materializes and society must decide how to react. It is very difficult to predict when technological breakthroughs will suddenly introduce new ethical challenges to humanity. In 1997, experts predicted that it would take perhaps 100 years before computers could beat humans at Go[1]. In 2016, a Google’s Alpha Go handily beat one of the best humans in the world at Go[2]. In isolation, this development is not particularly useful and does not pose
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However, self-driving cars have the potential to save a large number of human lives. It would be unethical to ban self-driving cars because of simple fear of the unknown. There is a significant temptation in society to be overly cautious about adopting new technology. The argument is alluring: Just give companies and researchers a little more time to work out some of the problems with self-driving cars and then they will be acceptable for widespread use. This attitude is helpful when technology is very raw (and sometimes dangerous). However, as technology matures it becomes more harmful. As technology continues to improve, a “wait and see” attitude becomes less about actual technical issues and more about people feeling insecure about new technology. It is ethically unacceptable to put personal feeling ahead of other people’s lives. It does not matter that these lives are somewhat abstract. Knowingly endangering other people based solely on feeling uncomfortable is unethical. Fortunately, this sort of attitude does not seem to be prevailing in regards to self-driving cars. In most states, legal scholars conclude that self-driving cars are “probably legal”[9], though they recommend that states update the language of their laws to specifically allow for self-driving cars. A risk to the widespread adoption of self-driving cars is that an accident where a self-driving car is at fault causes an overreaction by governments or the public before self-driving cars are seen as a part of everyday life. The first chance of this happening occurred when the Google self-driving car got in an accident a municipal bus[10]. The accident was not serious and so no major public reaction occurred. However, a more serious accident could give infinite ammunition to the “wait and see” crowd. This response would be detrimental to society.
However, self-driving cars have the potential to save a large number of human lives. It would be unethical to ban self-driving cars because of simple fear of the unknown. There is a significant temptation in society to be overly cautious about adopting new technology. The argument is alluring: Just give companies and researchers a little more time to work out some of the problems with self-driving cars and then they will be acceptable for widespread use. This attitude is helpful when technology is very raw (and sometimes dangerous). However, as technology matures it becomes more harmful. As technology continues to improve, a “wait and see” attitude becomes less about actual technical issues and more about people feeling insecure about new technology. It is ethically unacceptable to put personal feeling ahead of other people’s lives. It does not matter that these lives are somewhat abstract. Knowingly endangering other people based solely on feeling uncomfortable is unethical. Fortunately, this sort of attitude does not seem to be prevailing in regards to self-driving cars. In most states, legal scholars conclude that self-driving cars are “probably legal”[9], though they recommend that states update the language of their laws to specifically allow for self-driving cars. A risk to the widespread adoption of self-driving cars is that an accident where a self-driving car is at fault causes an overreaction by governments or the public before self-driving cars are seen as a part of everyday life. The first chance of this happening occurred when the Google self-driving car got in an accident a municipal bus[10]. The accident was not serious and so no major public reaction occurred. However, a more serious accident could give infinite ammunition to the “wait and see” crowd. This response would be detrimental to society.