Ethical Issues of Self-Driving Cars and Artificial Intelligence

This article discusses the ethical issues related to self-driving cars and artificial intelligence, including job losses and public antipathy. It explores the impact on various stakeholders and provides recommendations for addressing these issues. The article also highlights the need for new privacy legislation to address the downstream use of AI and machine learning.

RUNNING HEAD: Business ethics 0
Business ethics

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The title of the article is – “Self-driving cars If driverless cars are going to change the world,
they have to be affordable”. This article is obtained from the British daily newspaper i.e. The
Guardian which is one of the daily newspaper founded in 1821 and owned by Scott Trust.
The date of the article is 12 March 2019.
This article is intended towards the ethical issues related to driverless cars and in the future,
the society is served by robocabs –for-hire vehicles that operate much like taxis today. This
future technology shows the software algorithms will now be in control rather than humans.
With the rise in technological advancement, autonomous vehicle edge closer to reality and it
leads to bringing of an ethical issue with the surrounding of this technology, the resulting job
losses, and the public antipathy to this robot revolution (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2015). It
was identified that technology could kill 5 million jobs by 2020 and this may largely impact
on the global economy. The impact of the tech revolution is the key topic in today trend as
major businesses over the world are investing certain figures in this. Hence, this article brings
out various insights related to future preference of consumer towards technology, various
societal changes, affordability concerning with self-driving enthusiasts and more practical
reality.
This article brings out two ethical issues – job losses and public antipathy to this robot
revolution (Nunes, 2019). The self-driving car is technology biggest gift to civilization as it
will restore mobility to the young, elderly and disabled. This technology surely will change
the world transportation scenario and make travel cheaper and safer. Moreover, it is expected
to reduce fuel costs, labor costs, and accidents. However, this impending revolution includes
one huge drawback as robot cars are going to have a negative impact on a lot of jobs. Various

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companies like Tesla are trying to pushing this technology very sooner as they are currently
in the testing phase (Vellinga, 2017). This can cause to lose to various jobs and also some of
also may experience declining wages relating to both driving and non-driving occupations.
Considering 2014 Census data, more than 4.4 million Americans aged 16 and over working
as drivers and they can be majorly categorized as “truck drivers and driver workers”. It could
be many years before these driverless technologies may takeout those jobs. It also tackled the
complex issue of ethics around driverless vehicles – in specific, who takes responsibility
when they crash. Therefore, it can be said that this technology surely brings out various
opportunities however, it will also cost jobs. In addition, the impact of this technology will
not be just on the drivers but its impact will also extend to crash repairers, insurers, traffic
police and also on lawyers who may put out of the work by the reduction in traffic accidents
(Lari, Douma, and Onyiah, 2015).
The other ethical issue includes public antipathy to this robot revolution. The ethical dilemma
of self-driving cars also presents a new scenario, such as whom should the vehicle save, -
when an accident is unavoidable and whom should it harm. As per various studies, it was
found that these autonomous vehicles would dramatically decrease road accidents i.e. up to
90 percent as per the report by McKinsey & Company. However, many people are still
confused that whether these accidents will be eliminated entirely and here the ethical
dilemma stands out. In addition, this technology will not be affordable to poor people of the
country and there is need to subsidies them for equivalent or greater benefits. For the poor,
this means being unable to go where they want and this will lead to upward economic
mobility. Therefore, it may have more deleterious effects on poverty and the widening gap
between the rich and poor (Fagnant and Kockelman, 2014).
There are numerous stakeholders that could be impacted by this technological effect and it
can be devastating. The transition to self-driving vehicles is likely to cause various
disruptions and penetrate a wide variety of industries. For instance, considering the insurance
industry, self-driving cars will bring down accident rate by 90% as this will leads to the
premium down as of reserve for pay-outs (Brown, 2015). Moreover, there will be lesser
drivers who get insured and thus car owners thereby lowering the pool of insured people.
There will also be a negative impact over hotels and motels mainly on the major highways as
people will not prefer to stop at a motel as they can comfortably sleep in long-haul driverless
cars. This effect can also be seen on airline employees as well. Another impact can be seen
on fast food companies. For instance, 70% of McDonald US revenue comes through the

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drive-thru window and thus this will be a big hit (Baertlein, 2017). Another stakeholder may
be public transportation. However, the positive impact will be on the stakeholder as they will
get various benefits with self-driving cars such as lower fuel or electricity consumption and
so on. Moreover, less traffic will also improve people health since traffic jams have been
cause a rise in blood pressure, depression and anxiety (Crayton and Meier, 2017).
In reference with ethical issues to the theory, consider the following thing, - the year is 2020,
and a person is traveling in a self-driving taxi, and unexpectedly six pedestrian step out in
front of the car. This situation has not time and the only way to save that pedestrian is to hit
the car with the tree which leads you to be fatally injured. On the other hand, if the car
continues on his current path, it will definitely injure all six walkers. Now, the ethical issue
came that whether the car should prioritize minimizing the loss of driver life or should it
programme to protect all the walkers?
Research is being carried out at MIT and it was revealed that a significant disconnect
between the ethical programming we want self-driving cars to have and the cars we actually
want to ride in. The result of the survey indicates that 76% agreeing that the car should be
programmed to sacrifice the life of one passenger and this means saving all those six walkers
life. However, with a utilitarian approach, it was shown less enthusiasm. It is a fine idea that
self-driving cars should be programmed to sacrifice their driver for a greater good but only
for some people as human acting in the interest of self-preservation is not unusual (Sheridan,
2011).
This rise into various conflicts between respondents intuitions as “utilitarian” and egalitarian
philosophy considering current practices on driverless technology. Various academics
recommended that policymakers need to set an open dialogue with the broader society in
relation to moral norms for this new technology. They should attempt to explain their
egalitarian policies, and it needs to be revised if the public rejects this.
In reference to recommendations considering those two ethical issues, being a manager, I
would like to follow these practices. Elimination of job at a large extent due to this emerging
issue confront the big issue and this makes the society to consider tough choices (Peng, Wang
and Jiang, 2008). It is true that jobs will disappear however, we can do train people for new
jobs with employment and integration. It is very important to spend less time on saving jobs
and more time in advancing and protecting the underlying people. The new entire ecosystem
resulting in a broader scope of jobs. For instance, the jobs of drivers can be replaced by

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technicians, dispatchers and customer service representatives. Labor-saving technology will
also result in the creation of new jobs. Moreover, Autonomous deliveries could create jobs
too as while autonomous delivery services do not need drivers, it's likely to need plenty of
other people to make it work.
However, the overall effect on employment is hard to predict. New technology is often met
with fear and self-driving technology are no different (Konig and Neumayr, 2017). Many
companies are already racing to put their first self-driving cars into action. It cannot be said
that jobs will disappear overnight and the economy is required to move with the trend of
technology. It was always seen that the workforce has shown resilience during the gradual
transition in any organization. Self-driving cars are going to largely eliminate job seekers that
were not interested in and bring outs many opportunities in work that individual will discover
more rewarding. This shows that these self-driving cars may contribute very little to
unemployment and new technology will always have a positive impact on the economy with
lowering costs and increasing productivity.
In consideration with another issue of public antipathy with this robot revolution, one cannot
predict the benefit of any technology before using it (Blalock and Gertler, 2008). When the
public will travel in these autonomous vehicles and address its benefits, only then it can be
overcome. Such benefits may include, lowering of stress and tiredness, health benefits due to
traffic issues, saving of a lot of expenses and so on.
Therefore, it is required to keep an eye out and be prepared for the changes that are soon to
come in the future scenario.

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The title of the article is –“How to address new privacy issues raised by artificial intelligence
and machine learning”. This article is attained from the Brookings which is an American
research group established in 1916. It provides the high quality research. The article was
established on 1 April, 2019 (Brookings, 2019).
This article aims towards ethical issues elevated by the artificial intelligence and machine
learning. The companies gather information regarding customers and use it for the marketing
along with other business purposes. The details concerning customers are regularly conclude
based on the revelations made. The marketing companies can easily forecast the shows watch
and the brand of the food bought by the customers in the same demographic and area exposes
these preferences. These characteristics are added by the marketers to profile for marketing
purposes by forming a ‘privacy externality’. The machine learning have role in increasing the
capacity to make these interventions (Pigozzi, Tsoukias, and Viappiani,2016). The pattern
followed by the machine learning analyses online behaviour disclosed by the customer’s
political beliefs, race, religious association, ethnicity, gender, health condition and sexual
positioning even if this information is never exposed online by the customers. The digital
Sherlock Holmes in virtually gives consumer control over the information and indirectly
discloses the sensitive information of the customers. The policymakers are required to form
new national privacy legislation which can be responsible for several limitations. The
creation of machine learning techniques like exacerbation of privacy externalities is the
reason concerning need for the new privacy rules. Now days, the artificial intelligence is also
used by the online companies to conduct investigation on the human aspects outside the
academic framework. A/B testing has role in improving customer engagement. The
controversy over the development of facial recognition software which can envisage the
sexual identification of people based on the facial appearances. It divulges how ethical
reviews must move beyond safeguarding human subjects. The dubbed gay face software was
used as a facial recognition tool to predict sexual orientation from just facial expressions
(Russell and Norvig, 2016).
The article brings out the ethical issues of downstream use of the technology which harms
members in the vulnerable groups. The government agencies, universities, companies and
research institutions are required to assess research programs by using broader lens than
defending human rights. The development of the machine learning proficiencies forecast the
most bosom and sensitive facets of the people’s lives. Such ethical issues are required to be
urgently addressed. The ethical issue identified in the article can be resolved through the

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legislation. The government is required to observe the process and boost the development of
the finest practices in this area to regulate the artificial intelligence research (Jha and Topol,
2016. The absolute prohibits on research unlock perilous queries regarding political intrusion
with the systematic research. The article states whether privacy legislation address bias in
artificial intelligence (Ghahramani, 2015). The current non-discrimination laws comprising
precise sectors like employment, credit, housing, insurance and the explicit groups of people
who can be the victim of discernment due to age, religion, gender, age, national origin or
incapacity. The advance analytic technique like artificial intelligence and machine learning
leads to no exemption from these rules. The current discrimination laws like equality act
comprising sexual orientation and gender identity addresses the privacy issues. The
enhancement in the discrimination law can affect usage of artificial intelligence systems. The
anti-discrimination laws should be reformed or artificial intelligence legislation alone in order
to address the privacy. The prevailing laws have necessity for the explanations in the definite
circumstances. For instance, financial service companies are necessitated to list the main
factors in the credit scores. They should also offer the motives for the negative actions taken
in the lending decision. The machine learning programs increases matters of explainability. It
is not possible to explain the models derived from the machine learning although the
underlying algorithm is transparent to the user. The complex form of interfaces makes
composite uses of the factors which make no speculative sense. For instance, the trade-offs
differ in the health care. The doctors and nurses in the hospitals take protective actions
centred on the machine learning correlation between onset of a hazardous fever in premature
infants and infrequent constancy of the vigorous signs. Although 24 hours later, they do not
have any casual description for this correlation (Li and Du, 2017).
There are several stakeholders which can be impacted by this technological effect and it can
be distressing as well. The machine learning and artificial intelligence are likely to cause
privacy issues and penetrate on large group of the companies. For instance, Facebook builds
psychometric profiles and identifies the individual’s gender, sex, personal traits and political
beliefs. The record of the American citizens influenced the US presidential election in 2017.
The research underpins the part of its work and analysis made was simple technically. In this
concern, good accuracy like personal traits helped in attaining a lot of data with the simple
linear regression. The customers are also the part of the stakeholders in this concern. The
artificial intelligence plays significant role in bringing people together. The long term
feasibility and instant benefits of working with less supervised data ranged from improved

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image recognition to increasing number of the languages which can be comprehended and
translated. Facebook have launched a number of platform and tools to assist others transition
artificial intelligence research into the product applications. Other companies are also
positively benefitted before planning of the products and services. The customer
segmentation can be clearly defined (Makridakis, 2017).
In allusion to the ethical issues to the theory, the use of the technology will be more enhanced
in the coming years on the personal and professional scale. If the following concern is
considered after 5 years, a person using bank application and unexpectedly his personal
information got revealed due to privacy concerns. In such a scenario, the only solution will be
to use offline banking. On the other side, if the individual continue to use the online services
then it can result in financial loss along with the privacy concern. Here the ethical issue arises
whether a person should prioritize minimising the use of the information over the website or
use offline services (Steels and Brooks, 2018). The deontological theory can be used to
resolve the ethical issues to resolve the downstream use of the technology. This theory
focuses on treating people with dignity and respect. It recognizes the duty and acts
responsibly. It makes right choice and does not violate the rule. This theory is considered
morally good and its acts are morally obligatory regardless of the consequences. This theory
necessitates advertisers over the media to follow the exact rules and do the duty. It avoids
subjectivity and uncertainty because of the fixed rules.
Being a manager, I will like to recommend considering the ethical issue of the downstream
use of the technology (Copeland, 2015). The technology should be more enhanced to
generate better results. The personal details of the customers should be used for most
confidential purposes only and should be used in such a way that it does not harm to them.
The threatening privacy issues should be given more significance. The variations should be
made time to time in the artificial intelligence and machine learning so that these causes less
privacy concerns. The new laws regarding confession, consent, portability, access and
practical use of the confidential data should be applied to the artificial intelligence systems.
The precautions should be taken to devise new obligations which are applied uniquely to the
artificial intelligence systems. The review should also be done appropriately as it can provide
comprehension into the ways in which further legislation is required (Miller and Brown,
2018).

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The innovative technologies often met with fear and the artificial intelligence and machine
learning are not different. It is impossible to predict the effect of the privacy issues causing
customers. Several customer are facing privacy issues but it does not stop the use of the
artificial intelligence and machine learning. The technology is required to be enhanced in
order to be upgraded so that it does not put negative impacts on the individuals. The
customers cannot predict the benefit of the artificial intelligence and machine learning. When
the companies will reveal the benefits, the fear of using technology can be overcome.

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