Self-Driving Cars will kill people. And we have to be okay with that.

Recently, there was a fatal car accident involving a Tesla model being operated by the Autopilot system, and last month, the NTSB cleared the car’s software of responsibility, citing that there were no deficiencies in the software that caused the crash.

Eventually, though, there will come a time where the software of a self-driving car will be found to be either negligent (passively allowing a crash) or responsible (actively causing a crash) in a motor vehicle fatality.

I say it’s inevitable because the world we live in is chaotic, mainly because of us humans.  People run into streets without warning, change lanes or make bizarre-seeming turns while driving, or drive inattentively, causing instability in our traffic.  The best programmed self-driving cars will never be able to account for every possible circumstance, but only the predictable ones that their sensors and artificial intelligence can process. 

What follows will be the result of pre-programmed split-second decision making.  Take the following situation: A self-driving car is going down a two lane road at speed with traffic on both sides.  Coming to an overpass, the car notices a person stepping out into the road.  The car has three options: hit the pedestrian, swerve into on-coming traffic and hit another car, or swerve to the right and crash the car (risking the life of the driver).  In this type of no-win situation, which option do we find best?

Counting on the driver isn’t going to work – the self-driving car is going to lull the driver in the same level of attentiveness to the road as they would have in a taxi.  They just would not be able to assess the situation and act in time to be useful.  So it’s up to the car, or more clearly, the programmers behind the car’s controls, to define the best approach to these types of situations.  Whatever they choose, someone is going to be put at risk because of a decision that the automation system is forced to make.

When it happens, there will be an uproar, and significant expressed concern that ‘our cars are out to kill us’.  It will be incumbent upon the makers and promoters of these automations to ensure that they can demonstrate the net positive benefit, and the lives saved through the implementation of self-driving capabilities.  Tesla and other manufacturers have taken the first step in demonstrating that there have been fewer accidents in their cars when being driven by the automation than when being driven by humans.  As more driving becomes automated, and vehicles become networked, this trend is likely to continue. 

If it does, then fatalities on our highways may become the rare occurrence, and may only be the result of pre-programmed split-second decisions.  Before we face that, let’s make sure that we all agree on how those types of decisions get made.