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Autonomous Devices Will Face Moral Dilemmas at Every Turn, Say Scientists | Egg Shells

Autonomous Devices Will Face Moral Dilemmas at Every Turn, Say Scientists

Posted by in Technology on Jun 26th, 2016 | Comments Off on Autonomous Devices Will Face Moral Dilemmas at Every Turn, Say Scientists
A satellite - with a mind of its own

A satellite – with a mind of its own

It isn’t just driverless cars that will need to ‘decide’ what to do in no-win situations…

Recent research has shown that most people would prefer driverless cars if necessary to sacrifice their occupants rather than plough into a group of children.

Yeah right.  But this is only one of many scenarios in which autonomous devices of all kinds will have to make split-second judgements.

Others include:

  • Vacuum cleaners: should they suck up and kill spiders, wood lice and ladybirds – or sacrifice the cleanliness of carpets?
  • Alarm clocks: should they allow some ‘snooze’ time, or wait to go off until the very last second?
  • Televisions: should they allow their owners to watch shitty reality shows, even if it makes Ant and Dec even richer?
  • Scales: should they indicate a woman’s exact weight – or take a few kilos off to spare her feelings?
  • Smoke & burglar alarms: should they go off on April Fools’ Day ‘just for fun’ and then call the fire brigade/police?
  • NASA: should its satellites pretend that Earth is under a ‘War of the Worlds’-like alien invasion, to test our readiness?

Cambridge University has set up a Faculty of Morals for Autonomous Devices (FoMAD) to consider such questions, and has invited Arnold Schwarzenegger to head it.  The actor is reported to be considering the offer, with University chiefs saying he is the perfect choice ‘because the Terminator films have already covered a lot of this stuff’.

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