This past week a photo was published showing a Google self-driving car getting pulled over. What is interesting about the photo is that when the officer goes up to car no one is in the driver seat.
But the photo does bring up an interesting issue. Are self-driving cars a good idea? The concept of the self-driving cars is very good. Anyone can now get anywhere without the “hassle” of driving. No longer will people need to worry about being too tired or too drunk to drive. They simply can sit back and relax and let the machine take them where they need to get safely.
But is that such a good idea? Yes, the ability for someone not to drive drunk is a good idea. And the ability on a long road trip to have the car take over is wonderful. But what happens when the car is driving around the neighborhood and something happens? Will the car react the same way as a human?
Self-driving cars are being designed by some of the best people on earth. Tech companies like Google and Apple, along with all of the major car companies are investing huge amounts of money into autonomous driving technology. Mercedes today has tech in some of their models that will, for brief moments, allow the car to drive itself.
Will the car will be able to control itself, follow all the rules of the road, and be able to operate without hurting anyone? But how will the car react when an unexpected situation comes up?
For example, how will the car react when it is driving down the road and a child runs out in the middle of the road chasing a ball? The car could swerve into the other lane, but another car is coming that way, therefore causing a head-on collision. How will the car react? More importantly how will the engineers program the car to react? Will the car be programmed to hit the child? Or will it swerve into the other lane, causing an accident?
These ethical decisions will need to be talked about and discussed before a conclusion is reached. What would happen if a human was driving in that situation? My guess is that a human will see what is happening and just react. The person making that decision has a far less ethical dilemma because of emotions. A human might decide to swerve into the other lane, or they might have to hit the kid. Either way a human will react on that feeling.
But that is the issue. A human can react knowing what the outcome will be. A machine can only react to how it is programmed to react. If that situation did occur, what would the victims do? Would they sue Google because they programmed a car to cause a head-on collision? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer.
Actually there is a simple answer, drive yourself. Is driving become that much of a hassle that we can’t do it anymore? Are we that lazy? What happened to the idea that when you turn 16 and get your driver’s license it was the best day of your life because you can now drive?
I love driving, always have, always will. I never want to stop driving. Self-driving cars are coming in the future, but we need to be more critical of them than we currently are. My solution? A 997 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Drive one of those and you will never not want to drive again.
