Ethical dilemma of who survives self-driving car accident Publication info: The New Zealand Herald ; Auckland, New Zealand [Auckland, New Zealand]03 Jan 2019: B.3. ProQuest document link FULL TEXT Imagine this scenario —the brakes fail on a self-driving car as it hurtles toward a busy crossing. A homeless person and a criminal are crossing in front of the car. Two cats are in the opposing lane. Should the car swerve to mow down the cats or hit two people? It’s a relatively straightforward ethical dilemma, as moral quandaries go. And people overwhelmingly prefer to save human lives over animals, according to a new ethics study that asked people how a self-driving car should respond when faced with a variety of extreme trade-offs —dilemmas to which more than two million people responded. But what if the choice is between two elderly people and a pregnant woman? An athletic person or someone who is obese? The study identified a few preferences that were strongest. People opt to save people over pets, to spare the many over the few, and to save children and pregnant women over older people. But it also found other preferences for sparing women over men, athletes over obese people, and higher status people, such as executives, instead of homeless people or criminals. There were also cultural differences in the degree, for example, that people would prefer to save younger people over the elderly in a cluster of mostly Asian countries. “We don’t suggest that [policymakers] should cater to the public’s preferences. They just need to be aware of it, to expect a possible reaction when something happens. If, in an accident, a kid does not get special treatment, there might be some public reaction,” said Edmond Awad, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who led the work. The thought experiments posed by the researcher’s Moral Machine website went viral, with their pictorial quiz taken by several million people in 233 countries or territories. Outside researchers said the results were interesting, but cautioned that the results could be overinterpreted. In a randomised survey, researchers try to ensure a sample is unbiased and representative of the overall population, but in this case the voluntary study was taken by a population that was predominantly younger men. The scenarios are also distilled, extreme and far more black and white than the ones in the real world. “The big worry I have is that people reading this are going to think this study is telling us how to implement a decision process for a self-driving car,” said Benjamin Kuipers, a computer scientist at University of Michigan, who was not involved in the work. Kuipers added that these thought experiments may frame some of the decisions car makers and programmers make about autonomous vehicle design in a misleading way. There’s a moral choice, he argued, that precedes the conundrum of whether to crash into a barrier and kill three passengers or to run over a pregnant woman pushing a stroller. “Building these cars, the process is not really about saying, ‘if I’m faced with this dilemma, who am I going to kill.’ It’s saying, ‘if we can imagine a situation where this dilemma could occur, what prior decision should I have made to avoid this?” he said. The complexity of the world can be captured by the example of a criminal versus a dog. While many said they would save the canine over its human counterpart, this overlooks the nuanced reasons why a person might be PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 3 driven to a life of crime. Nicholas Evans, a philosopher at the University of Massachusetts, pointed out that while the researchers described their three strongest principles as the ones that were universal, the cut-off between those and the weaker ones that weren’t deemed universal was arbitrary. They categorised the preference to spare young people over elderly people, for example, as a global moral preference, but not the preference to spare those who are following walk signals versus those who are jaywalking, or to save people of higher social status. Evans is working on a project that he said has been influenced by the approach taken by the MIT team. He says he plans to use more nuanced crash scenarios, where real-world transportation data can provide a probability of surviving a T-bone highway crash on the passenger side, for example, to assess the safety implications of selfdriving cars. “We want to create a mathematical model for some of these moral dilemmas and utilise the best moral theories that philosophy has to offer, to show what the result of choosing an autonomous vehicle to behave in a certain way is,” Evans said. Iyad Rahwan, a computer scientist at MIT who oversaw the work, said that a public poll shouldn’t be the foundation of artificial intelligence ethics. But he said that regulating AI will be different from traditional products, because the machines will have autonomy and the ability to adapt, making it more important to understand how people perceive AI and what they expect of technology. “We should take public opinion with a grain of salt,” Rahwan said. “I think it’s informative.” —Washington Post and NZ Herald DETAILS Subject: Preferences; Researchers; Older people; Ethics; Homeless people; Autonomous vehicles; Traffic accidents &safety Location: Massachusetts Company / organization: Name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology; NAICS: 611310; Name: University of Michigan; NAICS: 611310 Publication title: The New Zealand Herald; Auckland, New Zealand First page: B.3 Publication year: 2019 Publication date: Jan 3, 2019 Section: Business Publisher: New Zealand Media and Entertainment, NZME Place of publication: Auckland, New Zealand Country of publication: New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand Publication subject: General Interest Periodicals--New Zealand PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 3 ISSN: 11700777 Source type: Newspapers Language of publication: English Document type: News ProQuest document ID: 2162490832 Document URL: https://search.proquest.com/docview/2162490832?accountid=142908 Copyright: Copyright New Zealand Media and Entertainment, NZME Jan 3, 2019 Last updated: 2019-07-01 Database: ProQuest Central Database copyright  2020 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions Contact ProQuest PDF GENERATED BY PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 3 College of Administrative and Financial Sciences Assignment 3 Business Ethics and Organization Social Responsibility (MGT422) Deadline: (28/11/2020 @ 23:59) Course Name: Business Ethics and Student’s Name: Organization Social Responsibility Course Code: MGT422 Student’s ID Number: Semester: 1st CRN: 10094 Academic Year: 1441/1442 H, 1st Term For Instructor’s Use only Instructor’s Name: Dr.Asif Hasan Students’ Grade: /5 Level of Marks: High/Middle/Low Instructions – PLEASE READ THEM CAREFULLY • This assignment is an individual assignment. • The due date for Assignment 3 is by the end of Week 13 (28/11/2020). • The Assignment must be submitted only in WORD format via an allocated folder. • Assignments submitted through email will not be accepted. • Students are advised to make their work clear and well presented. This also includes filling in your information on the cover page. • Students must mention the question number clearly in their answer. • Late submission will NOT be accepted. • Avoid plagiarism, the work should be in your own words, copying from students or other resources without proper referencing will result in ZERO marks. No exceptions. • All answered must be typed using Times New Roman (size 12, doublespaced) font. No pictures containing text will be accepted and will be considered plagiarism). Submissions without this cover page will NOT be accepted. Assignment Workload: • This Assignment comprises of a Case Study. • The assignment is to be submitted by each student individually. Assignment Purposes/Learning Outcomes: After completion of Assignment-3 students will able to understand the LO 1.1 Demonstrate a solid understanding of prominent theories of ethics and morality LO 2.1. Defend their rationale for decisions related to acceptable and unacceptable business conduct based on the business ethics principles. LO 4.5. The capacity to write a coherent project about a case study or actual research about ethics. Assignment-3 • Read the case article “Ethical dilemma of who survives self-driving car accident” Publication info: The New Zealand Herald; Auckland, New Zealand [Auckland, New Zealand]03 Jan 2019: B.3. available in SDL and answer the following questions: Critical Thinking Question(s): (Marks 5) 1. Analyze the philosophical approach (3 prescriptive approaches) the author speaks about considering the examples mentioned in the article. (3 Marks) 2. Evaluate one of the Philosophical approaches and describe why you have (or would) use this approach to guide your decision making. (2 Marks) Grading Criteria - Rubric for Assignment Criteria/Achievements Excellent Average Below Average The philosophical approach to ethical decision making involves Prescriptive approaches (Students must discuss ethical perspectives of Consequentialist theory, Deontological Theories, and Virtue Ethics) must be clear. Explain all the three approaches with relevant examples from the article case is clear. Examples are clearly explained but fail to explain all the three approaches. Examples and Approaches are not well explained. (60 % Score) (3 Marks) (2 Mark) The explanation should be based on selecting and reasoning the approach being used as a guideline for decision making. Eg if the student chooses the consequentialist approach then reasoning should be based on maximum benefits to society and minimize harms. All the facets of the approach along with reasons are well explained. Explanation lacks clarity about the approach. (40 % Score) Answers: 1. 2. (2 Marks) (1.5 Mark) (1 Mark) Reasons are not acceptable for selecting a particular approach. (0.5 Mark)
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