An ethics commission created by the German government has drawn up the world’s first ethical guidelines to regulate issues of practical and moral responsibility for automated vehicles, said Alexander Dobrint, Germany’s Federal Transport Minister in a news release. “Programmers should not decide who lives and who dies,” was the guiding principle legislators, scientists and thinkers used to draft the guidelines.
“Self-driving cars should not make decisions based on a person’s characteristics, whether age, physical condition or sex,” said Professor Christoph Lutge, business ethicist at the Technical University of Munich. “Human dignity is inviolable. Which is why vehicles cannot be programmed along the lines of: “If in doubt, hit the man with the walking frame.”
He underscored the notion that no person should be required to give up control of their automobile.
A group of fourteen philosophers, lawyers, theologians, engineers and consumer protection advocates deliberated over 10 months, discussing and trying out self-driving cars as ways of understanding the future issues that could arise as self-driving technology makes economic, social and political inroads into our daily lives.
Lutge said he believes a “neutral body” should manage a catalogue of scenarios with “universally accepted standards.”
“We want regulations that clearly set out when the driver is in control and when technology is in control — and who is liable,” he said.
