On Thu, 2016-07-14 at 15:01 +1000, Brendan wrote: > On 07/14/2016 02:06 PM, Karl Auer wrote: > > The fallacy in the argument as it applies to autonomous vehicles is > The argument has nothing whatsoever to do with autonomous vehicles > making decisions.
OK. It turns out you were applying "the trolley problem" with the trolley being the robot cars themselves. Do we go down this track and let these people die or that other track and let those people die. > I can only assume that you have not understood. Well, yes and no. *Any* real-world application of the trolley problem is fallacious. > *If presented with this data*, then the choice by *human decision > makers* to allow the vehicles on the road is not only a choice about > how many people are going to die, but it's also a choice about what > type of people (ie class A or class B) they choose to let die. It's fallacious for the same reasons I gave - there is no clear line between the two classes, or any way to create one. There are three other reasons as well. The first is that a major aspect of the trolley problem is time; the switcher must make a decision now, without time to consider deeply. In the trolley problem, inaction is a decision, and it's a decision with a clear outcome. The second is that the trolley problem provides almost no information to the switcher to base a decision on - just a body count, that's it. That is too few facts. Besides which, human decision makers in the real world rarely if ever use the facts, and I would venture to suggest NEVER use ONLY the facts, to make their decisions. The third is that there is no way to know, except in the light of experience, what other risks may surface as a result of widespread use of autonomous vehicles. Made-up examples: How many people will die because they assume autonomous vehicles have "seen" then and will/can avoid hitting them? How many young men will die playing chicken with robot vehicles? How many people will die due to failures or subversions of autonomous vehicles? And so on. In other words, there are more than just two possible outcomes. In short, if the situation you posit were actually possible, then you might have a point, but it's not. Human decision makers are not facing a trolley problem; they are facing a problem that requires judgement and wisdom. Regards, K. -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Karl Auer (ka...@biplane.com.au) http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer http://twitter.com/kauer389 GPG fingerprint: E00D 64ED 9C6A 8605 21E0 0ED0 EE64 2BEE CBCB C38B Old fingerprint: 3C41 82BE A9E7 99A1 B931 5AE7 7638 0147 2C3C 2AC4 _______________________________________________ Link mailing list Link@mailman.anu.edu.au http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link