Ethical Issues of Self-Driving Cars and Artificial Intelligence

RUNNING HEAD: Business ethics 0
Business ethics

Business ethics 1
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