Topics in IT Ethics Assignment

Running head: TOPICS IN IT ETHICS
Topics in IT Ethics: Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?
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TOPICS IN IT ETHICS
Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?
Introduction
The purpose of this essay is to analyse a situation on virtue of four classical ethical
techniques. This essay will discuss the positive and the negative impacts of using driverless cars.
One of the self-driving Google cars, a modified Lexus SUV crashed with a bus. The self driving
car having detected a pile of sandbags tried to avoid it and thus moved to the centre of the lane
(Iozzio, 2016). This resulted in the car crashing with a bus coming from the opposite direction.
Therefore, with an aim of avoiding an accident, the self driver caused another major accident.
This leads to the ethical question, whether it is safe to use driverless cars or self driving cars in
roads. Furthermore, it is not the case that the test driver of Lexus did not see the bus, it thought
that the bus driver will slow down to let the SUV continue. Therefore the fact is that, the major
reason of the accident is the judgmental error of the driverless car. The following paragraphs
analyses this situation on basis of four classical ethical theories, which are Utilitarian theory,
Deontological theory, Virtue theory and Contract theory (Bonnefon, Shariff & Rahwan, 2015).
The Situation
A self driving Google SUV caused a crash near Mountain View, Calif in order to avoid a
pile of sand bags that it had detected. The accident was caused since the car move to the centre of
the lane in order to avoid the sand bags. Due to this, it crashed with a bus coming from the
opposite direction. Even after noticing the bus, the SUV did not try to avoid the accident as it
thought that the bus driver will slow down. Therefore it becomes very essential to evaluate
whether the use of driverless cars safe for its passengers or other vehicles or not.

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Although this crash is not the project’s first crash, it is definitely the first crash that is
caused by a nonhuman error. Most of the previous crashes that have been reported are mainly
caused by rear ended human drivers not paying attention to the traffic lights. This accident
however, sheds light in the looming gray area in the robotic future. The main question arises
from this situation is that, who is responsible if the self driving car crashes? These types of
accidents can definitely put a break to the use of the driverless cars (Goodall, 2014).
Furthermore, it becomes very difficult to determine who will be responsible when a self driving
car crashes. Be it a human driver, the driver could have been blamed or the car owner, but in this
case, when a computerized driver replaces a human driver, is it allowed to blame the company
that is manufacturing this car? (Litman, 2014) This situation is therefore analysed on basis of
four classical ethical theories. The positive effect of use of driverless cars or automatic cars is
that, it reduces the human effort by a considerable amount. However, the negative impact is that,
it can increase the number of cases of accidents.
The Four Classical Theories of Ethics
Theory of utilitarianism, deontology, virtue, and contract are four classical ethical
theories on which the current situation will be analysed (Hayry, 2013). The theory of
utilitarianism states that one situation will be ethical only if does good to a greatest number of
people. Therefore, one situation will be ethical only if it is agreed by a larger group of people.
The theory of deontology states that a situation will be ethical only if the actions associated with
it is right irrespective of the rightness and wrongness of the consequence (Willis, 2014). The
theory of virtue states that and individual’s character is the key element that is associated with
the rightness or wrongness of a situation and that the individual’s character drives the ethical
thinking (Lin, 2016). Lastly, the contract theory follows that if an action has a positive opinion of

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a major group of people, it is ethical. The current situation will be analysed on basis of these
classical ethical theories.
The Analysis
Utilitarianism Theory
Since the theory of utilitarianism mainly focuses on the greater good, this situation is
completely unethical on basis of utilitarianism theory. This is because the self driving cars do not
guarantee the safety of the passengers which should be the most significant consideration of any
emerging technology (Bonnefon Shariff & Rahwan, 2016). The use of the driverless cars can
possibly risk the lives of many within seconds due to a wrong analysis of a particular situation,
which has happened in this case as well. However, it might be the case that the bus driver is
wrong in this case and that it should have slowed down. But both the situation risks human lives
which is unethical. Since the use of such cars can risk human lives, utilitarian theory rejects the
use of driverless cars.
Deontology Theory
According to the theory of deontology that analyses a situation on basis of the rightness
or wrongness of the actions, this situation may not be unethical as use of robots in pace of drivers
does not reflects any wrong intention. Furthermore, it is designed to make the human lives easier
and therefore, it is not unethical. The main intention of using driverless cars is to lowering the
human efforts and making their lives easier. It does not incorporate any wrong intention or
action, although the consequences may be wrong. The wrong or nrgative consequence includes
the accidents that can occur due to the ineffective decision making power of the robot driver.
Therefore, according to the theory of deontology, the use of driverless cars is not ethically wrong

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Virtue Theory
According to the theory of virtue, this situation is unethical since the test driver of SUV
have analysed the situation in a wrong way. It had thought that the driver of the bus will slow
down, and this analysis has resulted in the accident (Thierer, & Hagemann, 2015). The virtue
theory is mainly based in the acquisition of good character traits from the individuals with the
kind of habit they develop. The use of driverless cars does not guarantee the safety of the
passengers as accidents in a number of cases is reported. Therefore, this implies a wrong
decision making and thus the whole scenario of using driverless trucks is unethical. The positive
impact of driverless car is although reduction of human effort, the driverless cars being the cause
of accidents will not be accepted by Virtue theory.
Contract Theory
Lastly according to the theory of contract, a situation is ethical only if it is accepted by a
larger group of people (Hevelke & Nida-Rümelin, 2015). Contract theory analyses a situation
from the perspective of certain contractual agreements between the individuals. One virtue of
social contract model is that it gives a particular person motivation of being moral. Risking the
lives of human can never be considered as moral. Therefore, in this case, since a self driving car
is capable of risking human lives, it is obvious that a greater part of the society will give an
opinion against the use of self driving cars, and therefore, this situation is unethical. The situation
has a very less or little positive impact in comparison to the negative impact and therefore, the
entire situation is unethical according to contract theory.
Conclusion

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The essay tries to analyse a situation on basis of four classical ethical theories and
answered the question whether the use of driverless cars is ethical or not.. It is a very difficult
question to answer, who is supposed to be blamed if a self driving car crashes. The essay takes
into consideration an example of a crash that involved a self driving SUV and a bus. The
accident have caused mainly because the test driver of the SUV had thought that the bus will
slow down, which did not happen in this case causing the car to crash. The test driver of the SUV
although saw the bus coming from the opposite direction, it did not feel the need of slowing even
after it was its fault to come to the centre of the lane for avoiding a pile of sand bags. The
analysis proves that if greater good is considered, the use of self driver cars should not be
promoted. The use of self driving cars can be promoted only if the analysing powers of these
cars are improvised to a certain extent.

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References
Bonnefon, J. F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2015). Autonomous vehicles need experimental
ethics: are we ready for utilitarian cars?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1510.03346.
Bonnefon, J. F., Shariff, A., & Rahwan, I. (2016). The social dilemma of autonomous
vehicles. Science, 352(6293), 1573-1576.
Goodall, N. (2014). Ethical decision making during automated vehicle crashes. Transportation
Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, (2424), 58-65.
Hayry, M. (2013). Liberal utilitarianism and applied ethics. Routledge.
Hevelke, A., & Nida-Rümelin, J. (2015). Responsibility for crashes of autonomous vehicles: an
ethical analysis. Science and engineering ethics, 21(3), 619-630.
Iozzio , C. (2016). Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?. Retrieved from
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/who-s-responsible-when-a-self-driving-car-
crashes/#
Lin, P. (2016). Why ethics matters for autonomous cars. In Autonomous Driving (pp. 69-85).
Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Litman, T. (2014). Autonomous vehicle implementation predictions. Victoria Transport Policy
Institute, 28.
Thierer, A., & Hagemann, R. (2015). Removing roadblocks to intelligent vehicles and driverless
cars. Wake Forest JL & Pol'y, 5, 339.

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Willis, J. E. (2014). Learning analytics and ethics: A framework beyond utilitarianism. Educause
Review.