What has the Trolley Dilemma ever done for us (and what will it do in the future)? On some recent debates about the ethics of self-driving cars

Wolkenstein, Andreas (2018): What has the Trolley Dilemma ever done for us (and what will it do in the future)? On some recent debates about the ethics of self-driving cars. In: Ethics and Information Technology, Vol. 20, No. 3: pp. 163-173

Abstract

Self-driving cars currently face a lot of technological problems that need to be solved before the cars can be widely used. However, they also face ethical problems, among which the question of crash-optimization algorithms is most prominently discussed. Reviewing current debates about whether we should use the ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as a guide towards designing self-driving cars will provide us with insights about what exactly ethical research does. It will result in the view that although we need the ethics of the Trolley Dilemma as important input for self-driving cars, the route towards simply implementing it into automated cars is blocked.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Medicine
• Subjects: 600 Technology > 610 Medicine and health
• ISSN: 1388-1957
• Language: English