Real-world Ethics for Self-Driving Cars

Ethical and social problems of the emerging technology of self-driving cars can best be addressed through an applied engineering ethical approach. However, currently social and ethical problems are typically being presented in terms of an idealized unsolvable decision-making problem, the so-called Trolley Problem. Instead, we propose that ethical analysis should focus on the study of ethics of complex real-world engineering problems. As software plays a crucial role in the control of self-driving cars, software engineering solutions should handle actual ethical and social considerations. We take a closer look at the regulative instruments, standards, design, and implementations of components, systems, and services and we present practical social and ethical challenges that must be met in the ecology of the socio-technological system of self-driving cars which implies novel expectations for software engineering in the automotive industry.