Building an Ethical Autonomous Vehicle : Issues, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

The intelligent information society demands significant changes in the legal system, and the commercialization of autonomous vehicles is the most influential phenomenon that suggests the need for such changes. Focused on ethical issues of autonomous vehicles, the study is to identify the task of ‘ethicalization of autonomous vehicles’ and to address its future prospects. An ethical problem arises when autonomous vehicles replace human being in the decision-making process regarding safety of human life. The ethical challenges, such as the ‘Trolley Problem,’ show that the science and technology should not be expected to take a neutral stance on values and ethics in human society. First, as a theoretical foundation, this paper gives a general overview of discourse in the field of robot ethics in three categories: i) ethical guidelines of robotics; ii) moral status of robots; iii) ethical treatment of robot(robot rights). The notions of ‘autonomy’ and ‘robot-being’ are crucial in analyzing the applicability of robot ethics to the case of autonomous vehicles. Furthermore, the methods to build and design an ethical robot can be utilized to program the ethical algorithms for autonomous vehicles, and their practicality and effectiveness are examined by solving the trolley problem. Moreover, the paper provides ethical evaluations of prioritized decision making during autonomous vehicle crashes. In ethically dilemmatic situations, a priority-based hierarchical structure may accompany the issues of discriminating functions and the action/inaction distinction. Finally, as a closing remark, this paper suggests future prospects of the ethicalization of autonomous vehicles.