Don't expect too much
The Guardian interviewed Andrew Chatham, a principal engineer on Google’s self-driving car project, who said the problem has little bearing on actual design.
“It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’,” he said. “You’re much more confident about things directly in front of you, just because of how the system works, but also your control is much more precise by slamming on the brakes than trying to swerve into anything. So it would need to be a pretty extreme situation before that becomes anything other than the correct answer.”
It would seem that Google feel they have to make the choice; brake or steer. My 13 year old Mondeo has ABS and as far as I can tell I can brake and steer at the same time.
Maybe Mr Chatham is dodging the question or maybe the development of self driving cars is still at an early stage. We should not expect too much in the near future in the area of moral development by Google at least. How others in the field such as Uber are getting to grips with the new concept of morality is anyone's guess.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
