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Would you kill the 1 to save the 5?

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Would you reroute a train to run over one person to prevent it from running over five others? In the classic “Trolley Problem” survey, most people say they would. But I wanted to test what people would actually do in a real-life situation. In the world’s first realistic simulation of this controversial moral dilemma, unsuspecting subjects will be forced to make what they believe is a life-or-death decision.

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Would you reroute a train to run over one person to prevent it from running over five others? In the classic "Trolley Problem" survey, most people say they would. But I wanted to test what people would actually do in a real-life situation.

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How do you score?

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A platform for public participation in and discussion of the human perspective on machine-made moral decisions

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What are the benefits?
What are the drawbacks?

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Google Driverless Self Driving Autonomous Car

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Who should get the ticket?

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That, at least, was the result when a police officer pulled over one of Google's self-driving cars Thursday in Mountain View, California.

The car wasn't speeding. On the contrary, it was driving too slowly -- 24 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone, according to the Mountain View Police Department -- with traffic apparently backing up behind it.

"As the officer approached the slow moving car he realized it was a Google Autonomous Vehicle," a police department post said.

Which is to say that no one was driving the darn thing.

There was, however, a passenger. So the officer asked the passenger how the car was choosing speeds along certain roadways.

He also took the opportunity to inform the passenger about 22400(a) of the California Vehicle Code, which related to impeding traffic -- a section of the law the self-driving car may have been unfamiliar with.

An unblemished record

In a Google Plus post, the Google Self-Driving Car Project pled guilty to slow driving.

"We've capped the speed of our prototype vehicles at 25 mph for safety reasons," the post said. "We want them to feel friendly and approachable, rather than zooming scarily through neighborhood streets."

In the end, the officer determined the car had broken no law. No harm, no foul.

And no ticket was issued -- not because there was no driver to whom to issue it but because the car had committed no violation.

For its part, the Google Self-Driving Car Project seemed proud of the whole affair.

"Driving too slowly? Bet humans don't get pulled over for that too often," the post said.

And the cars' unblemished record continues.

"After 1.2 million miles of autonomous driving (that's the human equivalent of 90 years of driving experience), we're proud to say we've never been ticketed!" the car project posted.﻿

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Cop pulls over Google self-driving car, finds no driver to ticket - CNN

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That, at least, was the result when a police officer pulled over one of Google's self-driving cars Thursday in Mountain View, California. The car wasn't speeding. On the contrary, it was driving too slowly -- 24 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone, according to the Mountain View Police Department -- with traffic apparently backing up behind it.

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How can did this happen?
What consequences did it have for
a) Tesla
b) the self-driving car industry?

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The Tesla driver killed in the first known fatal crash involving a self-driving car may have been watching a Harry Potter movie at the time of the collision in Florida, according to a truck driver involved in the crash.

The truck driver, Frank Baressi, 62, told the Associated Press that the Tesla driver Joshua Brown, 40, was "playing Harry Potter on the TV screen" during the collision and was driving so fast that "he went so fast through my trailer I didn't see him".

The disclosure raises further questions about the 7 May crash in Williston, Florida, which occurred after Brown put his Model S into Tesla's autopilot mode, which is able to control a car while it's driving on the highway.

The fatal crash, which federal highway safety regulators are now investigating, is a significant setback and a public relations disaster for the growing autonomous vehicle industry. Tesla Motors Inc's shares, however, were down less than 1% on Friday in early trading.

Baressi, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment, said the Harry Potter movie "was still playing when he died and snapped a telephone pole a quarter mile down the road". He told the AP, however, that he heard the movie but didn't see it.

The Florida highway patrol told Reuters that there was a portable DVD player in the vehicle.

According to Tesla's account of the crash, the car's sensor system, against a bright spring sky, failed to distinguish a large white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway. In a blogpost, Tesla said the self-driving car attempted to drive full speed under the trailer "with the bottom of the trailer impacting the windshield of the Model S".

The top of the vehicle was "torn off by the force of the collision", according to a police report in the local Levy County Journal.

Baressi was uninjured.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, tweeted his condolences regarding the "tragic loss", but the company's statement deflected blame for the crash. His 537-word statement noted that this was Tesla's first known autopilot death in roughly 130m miles driven by customers.

"Among all vehicles in the US, there is a fatality every 94 million miles," the statement said.

It goes on to say that the car's autonomous software is designed to nudge consumers to keep their hands on the wheels to make sure they're paying attention. "Autopilot is getting better all the time, but it is not perfect and still requires the driver to remain alert," the company said.

News of the death came just as BMW announced that it is joining forces with US computer chip firm Intel and Mobileye, an Israeli tech company, to develop its own self-driving cars.

Google, Uber and numerous automakers have also tested self-driving technology. BMW said the goal of the new collaboration was to develop cars that would eventually allow them to take their eyes off the road.

Brown, who owned a technology company called Nexu Innovation, was a Tesla enthusiast who posted videos of his car on autopilot on YouTube. One of them showed his vehicle avoiding a crash on the highway. The footage racked up 1m views after Musk tweeted it.

One of his first videos appeared to show Brown temporarily driving with no hands in slow-moving traffic. The Associated Press also reported that records show he received eight speeding tickets in six years.

Since Tesla introduced the autopilot mode last October, Model S drivers have recorded videos of themselves online pushing the technology to its limits.

On YouTube, there are multiple videos showing drivers with their hands off the wheel. Musk has advised against this. However, one of the videos was uploaded by actress Talulah Riley, Musk's second wife.

At the end of Tesla's blogpost announcing Brown's death, the company described the victim, who they did not name, as someone with "a loving family and we are beyond saddened by their loss".

"He was a friend to Tesla and the broader [electric vehicle] community, a person who spent his life focused on innovation and the promise of technology and who believed strongly in Tesla's mission."
The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Tesla driver killed while using autopilot was watching Harry Potter, witness says

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The Tesla driver killed in the first known fatal crash involving a self-driving car may have been watching a Harry Potter movie at the time of the collision in Florida, according to a truck driver involved in the crash.

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Another death... what's next for self-driving cars.

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An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital. There was a vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash.

Uber said in a statement on Twitter: "Our hearts go out to the victim's family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident." A spokesman declined to comment further on the crash.
Who's driving? Autonomous cars may be entering the most dangerous phase
The company said it was pausing its self-driving car operations in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber's CEO, tweeted: "Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We're thinking of the victim's family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened."

Uber has been testing its self-driving cars in numerous states and temporarily suspended its vehicles in Arizona last year after a crash involving one of its vehicles, a Volvo SUV. When the company first began testing its self-driving cars in California in 2016, the vehicles were caught running red lights, leading to a high-profile dispute between state regulators and the San Francisco-based corporation.

Police identified the victim as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg and said she was walking outside of the crosswalk with a bicycle when she was hit at around 10pm on Sunday. Images from the scene showed a damaged bike. The 2017 Volvo SUV was traveling at roughly 40 miles an hour, and it did not appear that the car slowed down as it approached the woman, said Tempe sergeant Ronald Elcock.

Elcock said he had watched footage of the collision, which has not been released to the public. Police identified the operator of the car as Rafaela Vasquez, 44, and said she was cooperative and there were no signs of impairment.

The self-driving technology is supposed to detect pedestrians, cyclists and others and prevent crashes.

John M Simpson, privacy and technology project director with Consumer Watchdog, said the collision highlighted the need for tighter regulations of the nascent technology.

"The robot cars cannot accurately predict human behavior, and the real problem comes in the interaction between humans and the robot vehicles," said Simpson, whose advocacy group called for a national moratorium on autonomous car testing in the wake of the deadly collision.

Simpson said he was unaware of any previous fatal crashes involving an autonomous vehicle and a pedestrian.

Tesla Motors was the first to disclose a death involving a self-driving car in 2016 when the sensors of a Model S driving in autopilot mode failed to detect a large white 18-wheel truck and trailer crossing the highway. The car drove full speed under the trailer, causing the collision that killed the 40-year-old behind the wheel in the Tesla.

Earlier this year, California regulators approved the testing of self-driving cars on public roads without human drivers monitoring inside.

"The technology is not ready for it yet, and this just sadly proves it," said Simpson.

In one recent incident, California police officers found a Tesla that was stopped in the middle of a five-lane highway and found a driver asleep behind the wheel. The man said the vehicle was in "autopilot", which is Tesla's semi-autonomous driver assist system, and he was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

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An Uber self-driving car travels in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Angelo Merendino/AFP/Getty Images

In another recent case, a Tesla car rear-ended a fire truck on a freeway, with the driver again telling the authorities the car was in autopilot mode at the time of the collision.

Michael G Bennett, an Arizona State University associate research professor who studies autonomous cars, said the self-driving vehicles have become ubiquitous around campus and on the streets in Tempe. Often they have operators behind the wheels, but sometimes they are fully autonomous with no human inside.

The fatal collision could spark significant calls for reform and reflections within the industry, he said.

"It may be problematic for the industry, because one of their central arguments for the value of the technology is that it is superior to human drivers," said Bennett, adding that autonomous cars should be able to detect pedestrians and avoid hitting them, even if they aren't in crosswalks: "Every day, pedestrians in cities around the world step outside of the crosswalk."

Rage against the machine: self-driving cars attacked by angry Californians

The governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, has been a strong proponent of allowing corporations to test the technology in his state, publicly slamming other governments for "over regulation" and in 2016 urging Uber to "ditch California" and launch in his region. In March, he issued new rules and said that more than 600 automated vehicles have driven on public roads in the state.

"Our prayers are with the victim, and our hearts go out to her family," Patrick Ptak, Ducey's spokesman, said in an email to the Guardian, adding, "Public safety is our top priority."

Linda Bailey, the executive director of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (Nacto), said in an interview that there has not been enough regulatory oversight of testing and that some governments are overwhelmed trying to understand autonomous technology and its limitations.

"There's an essential role for the public sector in regulating the safety of these vehicles, which has been largely left to private companies," she said, adding that Nacto supports third-party testing of the vehicles.

Tempe's mayor, Mark Mitchell, defended the city's ongoing support of autonomous vehicles in a statement Monday, saying: "All indications we had in the past show that traffic laws are being obeyed by the companies testing here."

This article was amended on 22 March to correct the name of the Uber safety driver, who police had initially misidentified.

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Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian

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An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

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Which was the most difficult question for you?

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9 Moral Dilemmas That Will Break Your Brain

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Take this poll to see how your answers to these classic moral dilemmas compare to everyone else's. Are we all terrible people?!