from [ringle](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62) Autonomous and Moral? The future of driverless cars Updated: 2021.06.27 11 min read · Advanced The push for driverless cars is a very recent [phenomenon [1]](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62#E1), although the future for vehicles in the world seems to be rapidly changing. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon for pedestrians of major U.S. cities to see driverless cars being tested on public roads. In response, many global tech firms (and car manufacturers) are moving aggressively to invest and carve out their share in the autonomous vehicle market. Google: Google began a self-driving car project with labs at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University in 2009. The project’s vision was to “fundamentally innovate driving as to achieve increased safety on the road, safer multitasking for riders, and a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.” Google’s self-driving technology has a track record of several million kilometers of testing on the road and is safe enough that a portion of Google’s employees use driverless cars to get to and from work (they drive as usual from home to the highway, but activate autonomous driving on the Silicon Valley highway). Just as Google replaced Samsung and Nokia as the leader of the smartphone market, it aims to [wrest control](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62#E2) of the automobile market [from [2]](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62#E2) Mercedes Benz. It plans to do so using massive amounts of transportation data, world-class engineering talent, and various applications (including its own Google Maps). Uber: Uber is a key contender for Google in a battle for the best autonomous vehicle technology. Uber established its Pittsburgh-based autonomous vehicle lab in 2015 through the mass recruitment of key research talent from Carnegie Mellon University. Its founding vision is “to provide taxi services that are less expensive than bus rides through driverless cars.” Uber proceeded to acquire the self-driving truck startup Ottomoto in 2016 for a reported KRW 750 billion ($680 million) along with its key talent. Ottomoto’s key talent included not only ex-Google, ex-Tesla, and ex-Apple employees (who were all experts in the autonomous vehicle technology space), but also Anthony Levandowski, the man who started Google’s self-driving car project. Uber’s application of Ottomoto’s technology has sparked a blockbuster legal battle with Google. Tesla: Tesla, known for its successful commercialization of the world’s most luxurious and technologically advanced electric cars, is also a key contender. It is developing autonomous vehicle technology with the goal of manufacturing ‘technologically flawless driverless electric vehicles, opening the door to a new era of commercialized electronic and driverless cars’. Current owners of Tesla’s Model S have access to partially automated driving (for instance, Autonomous Emergency Braking technology that prevents collisions). However, Tesla’s focus is not on developing technology for driverless delivery vehicles, but on developing technology for fully commercialized cars that maximize safety on the road. VW, BMW, Mercedes Benz, and other carmakers: While carmakers are a bit late to the race, they have also started developing their own autonomous vehicle technologies. The push to start for car manufacturers comes after realizing that tech firms developing driverless car technology will have immense effects on the automobile market. Policymakers and governments all around the world are introducing both regulations and supporting measures for driverless cars. Egged on by powerful lobbying from Google, the United States government (for the first time ever) authorized the operation of autonomous vehicles in Nevada in June of 2011. The granting of legal operation of autonomous vehicles in Florida and California followed shortly thereafter. In 2016, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ruled that the software on autonomous vehicles can be interpreted as “drivers,” a move that would accelerate the mass adoption of driverless cars. The NHTSA has categorized driverless cars into four distinct levels, so that it may enact policies for driverless cars that correspond to their level of autonomous driving. Level 1: Partial automation Level 2: Limited self-driving (“hands-on”) Level 3: “hands off” Level 4: “eyes off” Pros and Cons of Autonomous Vehicles While autonomous vehicles are likely in the near future, there are still many factors to take into account. Specifically, the production of autonomous vehicles brings with it important benefits and drawbacks, all of which must be carefully considered. Societal benefits include market opportunities; according to a forecast by Fortune Magazine, most of the vehicles on the road will be replaced by driverless cars by 2050. The market size for driverless cars is estimated to reach $7 trillion by 2050, with the sale of driverless cars alone accounting for $4 trillion. The remaining $3 trillion is estimated to come from the economic activity behind delivery and logistics. In addition to social benefits, autonomous vehicles bring about increased safety. When driverless cars become mainstream, vehicle crashes due to human errors will be eliminated. As it stands, some 95% of all vehicle crashes are due to human error. Casualties and deaths from vehicle crashes will sharply decline, bringing with it a huge reduction of societal costs. Autonomous vehicles will likely also bring about a reduction in traffic, and a reduction in transportation costs, respectively. According to many studies, the average number of passengers for all vehicles on the road is two. This means that most vehicles will be replaced by 2-Seater cars. When 2-Seater cars become the norm, traffic problems are expected to drop by about 40%. Moreover, driverless taxis will lead to a drop in taxi fares, ideally taking them below the cost of bus fares. While the problems of autonomous vehicles may be less obvious, their implications are far greater. For example, the use of autonomous vehicles [brings about [3]](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62#E3) the danger of large-scale car accidents, legal questions on blame, and ethical dilemmas. Because bugs are undoubtedly present in software, this can lead to critical system errors, resulting in larger-scale incidents. In addition, accidents in an autonomous vehicle leave a great deal of ambiguity around who (and what) to blame. Finally, moral and ethical decisions that might occur on the road will need to be decided by autonomous vehicles, creating new challenges for teaching AI appropriate moral values. Of course, “appropriate” values will also need to be set by society as a whole. Mitigating Drawbacks of Autonomous Vehicles Technological efforts: Companies are intensively testing their autonomous vehicle technologies (through the application of AI, machine learning, GPS, and state of the art sensors) in order to develop “fully autonomous vehicles that require no human intervention... even under highly stressful conditions.” Legal efforts: Governments from around the world are scrutinizing the autonomous vehicle technologies of relevant companies and looking to create policies tailored to new situations. Ethical efforts: Engineers at Stanford University and MIT are using AI and machine learning to develop self-driving cars that can make value-based ethical decisions (as humans do) when faced with moral dilemmas. For instance, research labs amass large amounts of data on real ethical decisions humans make when faced with moral dilemmas and use that data to train machines. Some have raised concerns that this method may lead driverless cars to make solely utilitarian decisions. Though there will be much [trial-and-error [4]](https://www.ringleplus.com/en/portal/lessons/materials/2328647?category=62#E4) involved in integrating autonomous vehicles in our day-to-day, it’s clear that we have started a gradual move towards wholly autonomous vehicles being on our roads.