ABSTRACT

The onset of autonomous driving has provided fertile ground for discussions about ethics in recent years. These discussions are heavily documented in the scientific literature and have mainly revolved around extreme traffic situations depicted as moral dilemmas, i.e. situations in which the autonomous vehicle (AV) is required to make a difficult moral choice. Quite surprisingly, little is known about the ethical issues in focus by the AV industry. General claims have been made about the struggles of companies regarding the ethical issues of AVs but these lack proper substantiation. As private companies are highly influential on the development and acceptance of AV technologies, a meaningful debate about the ethics of AVs should take into account the ethical issues prioritised by industry. In order to assess the awareness and engagement of industry on the ethics of AVs, we inspected the narratives in the official business and technical reports of companies with an AV testing permit in California. The findings of our literature and industry review suggest that: (i) given the plethora of ethical issues addressed in the reports, autonomous driving companies seem to be aware of and engaged in the ethics of autonomous driving technology; (ii) scientific literature and industry reports prioritise safety and cybersecurity; (iii) scientific and industry communities agree that AVs will not eliminate the risk of accidents; (iv) scientific literature on AV technology ethics is dominated by discussions about the trolley problem; (v) moral dilemmas resembling trolley cases are not addressed in industry reports but there are nuanced allusions that unravel underlying concerns about these extreme traffic situations; (vi) autonomous driving companies have different approaches with respect to the authority of remote operators; and (vii) companies seem invested in a lowest liability risk design strategy relying on rules and regulations, expedite investigations, and crash/collision avoidance algorithms.

摘要

近年来，自动驾驶的出现为有关道德的讨论提供了沃土。这些讨论在科学文献中有大量记载，主要围绕被描述为道德困境的极端交通情况，即要求自动驾驶汽车 (AV) 做出艰难的道德选择的情况。令人惊讶的是，人们对 AV 行业关注的道德问题知之甚少。关于公司在自动驾驶汽车的道德问题上的斗争已经提出了普遍的说法，但这些都缺乏适当的证据。由于私营公司对 AV 技术的发展和接受度具有重要影响，关于 AV 伦理的有意义的辩论应该考虑到行业优先考虑的伦理问题。为了评估行业对 AV 道德的意识和参与度，我们检查了在加利福尼亚拥有 AV 测试许可证的公司的官方业务和技术报告中的叙述。我们的文献和行业评论的结果表明：(i) 鉴于报告中涉及的道德问题过多，自动驾驶公司似乎意识到并参与了自动驾驶技术的道德问题；(ii) 科学文献和行业报告优先考虑安全和网络安全；(iii) 科学界和工业界一致认为自动驾驶汽车不会消除事故风险；(iv) 关于 AV 技术伦理的科学文献主要是关于电车问题的讨论；(v) 行业报告中没有涉及类似电车案件的道德困境，但有细微的暗示可以解开对这些极端交通情况的潜在担忧；(vi) 自动驾驶公司对远程操作员的权限有不同的处理方式；(vii) 公司似乎投资于依赖规则和法规、加快调查和碰撞/碰撞避免算法的最低责任风险设计策略。