Topics in IT Ethics Assignment
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Added on 2021-06-18
Topics in IT Ethics Assignment
Added on 2021-06-18
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Running head: TOPICS IN IT ETHICSTopics in IT Ethics: Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?Name of the StudentName of the UniversityAuthor Note
1TOPICS IN IT ETHICS Who's Responsible When a Self-Driving Car Crashes?IntroductionThe purpose of this essay is to analyse a situation on virtue of four classical ethicaltechniques. 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 drivingcar 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 inroads. Furthermore, it is not the case that the test driver of Lexus did not see the bus, it thoughtthat the bus driver will slow down to let the SUV continue. Therefore the fact is that, the majorreason of the accident is the judgmental error of the driverless car. The following paragraphsanalyses 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 SituationA self driving Google SUV caused a crash near Mountain View, Calif in order to avoid apile of sand bags that it had detected. The accident was caused since the car move to the centre ofthe lane in order to avoid the sand bags. Due to this, it crashed with a bus coming from theopposite direction. Even after noticing the bus, the SUV did not try to avoid the accident as itthought that the bus driver will slow down. Therefore it becomes very essential to evaluatewhether the use of driverless cars safe for its passengers or other vehicles or not.
2TOPICS IN IT ETHICS Although this crash is not the project’s first crash, it is definitely the first crash that iscaused by a nonhuman error. Most of the previous crashes that have been reported are mainlycaused by rear ended human drivers not paying attention to the traffic lights. This accidenthowever, sheds light in the looming gray area in the robotic future. The main question arisesfrom this situation is that, who is responsible if the self driving car crashes? These types ofaccidents 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 drivingcar crashes. Be it a human driver, the driver could have been blamed or the car owner, but in thiscase, when a computerized driver replaces a human driver, is it allowed to blame the companythat is manufacturing this car? (Litman, 2014) This situation is therefore analysed on basis offour classical ethical theories. The positive effect of use of driverless cars or automatic cars isthat, 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 ethicaltheories on which the current situation will be analysed (Hayry, 2013). The theory ofutilitarianism states that one situation will be ethical only if does good to a greatest number ofpeople. 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 withit is right irrespective of the rightness and wrongness of the consequence (Willis, 2014). Thetheory of virtue states that and individual’s character is the key element that is associated withthe rightness or wrongness of a situation and that the individual’s character drives the ethicalthinking (Lin, 2016). Lastly, the contract theory follows that if an action has a positive opinion of
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