Automated Vehicle Control: Incorporating Ethical Considerations

In light of recent events in the autonomous vehicle world, this talk on ethical considerations in automated vehicle control is very timely. This is an exciting joint event with SV AVE (https://www.meetup.com/autonomous), come meet AV industry professionals and researchers. We're thrilled to have Sarah Thornton with us, who co-authored the fantastic book chapter Implementable Ethics for Autonomous Vehicles (http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/109/chp%253A10.1007%252F978-3-662-48847-8_5.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fchapter%2F10.1007%2F978-3-662-48847-8_5&token2=exp=1472172397~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F109%2Fchp%25253A10.1007%25252F978-3-662-48847-8_5.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Fchapter%252F10.1007%252F978-3-662-48847-8_5*~hmac=e39ce452955839f3f96ee763ee61419db586aa37b6d1296aef332f896d88cb5f).

Refreshments/networking at 6, presentation starts at 6:30.

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/8/c/9/f/600_454595999.jpeg

Fig 5.5 from Implementable Ethics for Autonomous Vehicles (http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/109/chp%253A10.1007%252F978-3-662-48847-8_5.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Flink.springer.com%2Fchapter%2F10.1007%2F978-3-662-48847-8_5&token2=exp=1472172397~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F109%2Fchp%25253A10.1007%25252F978-3-662-48847-8_5.pdf%3ForiginUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Flink.springer.com%252Fchapter%252F10.1007%252F978-3-662-48847-8_5*~hmac=e39ce452955839f3f96ee763ee61419db586aa37b6d1296aef332f896d88cb5f).

About the talk:

As agents moving through an environment that includes a range of other road users – from pedestrians and cyclists to other human or automated drivers – automated vehicles continuously interact with the humans around them. The nature of these interactions is a result of the programming in the vehicle and the priorities placed there by the programmers. Just as human drivers display a range of driving styles and preferences, automated vehicles represent a broad canvas on which the designers can craft the response to different driving scenarios. Societal expectations for accident avoidance and adherence to traffic laws have their foundation in core moral issues found in philosophy and ethics. Thus, engineers designing control algorithms for automated vehicles can benefit from applying principles and frameworks from philosophy to drive design decisions. In all driving scenarios, however, the behavior of the vehicle and its control algorithms will ultimately be judged not by statistics or test track performance but by the standards and ethics of the society in which they operate.

Speaker bio:
Sarah currently pursues her doctoral degree in mechanical engineering at Stanford University. She obtained her M.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, where her research focused on developing an adaptive shift control algorithm for automatic transmissions. She received her B.Sc. degree in mechanical engineering from UC Berkeley in 2011. Her current research interests are in the area of ethical and uncertain decision-making for automated vehicles.