Joshua Greene

And then there are people who kind of said, that's never gonna happen.

When are you ever headed towards five people and then you can turn it on to one person, right?

And I think people were sort of taking the problem a little literally, but the more realistic version of this are things like this.

So you're driving along on a two lane road and there's a cyclist in front of you going, you know, pretty slow by car driving standards.

Right.

And you could maybe swerve around them, but there's traffic coming the other direction.

When is it okay to swerve?

How close can you get to that cyclist?

How much time do you feel like you have to give yourself?

How far away does that oncoming truck have to be, right?

Everyone who drives, you can drive nicely, you can drive like an aggressive jerk.

No one can avoid that question, right?

And what it really means to drive like a jerk is you are taking too many risks

especially with other people's wellbeing, but maybe also with yourself.

So autonomous driving trolley problems are not these stark choices where there are exactly two options.

So it's a more fluid kind of thing, but it's the same underlying tensions, right?

And one of the key tensions here is between the wellbeing of the individuals in the car versus those who might be outside the car.

There was this kind of now infamous episode where a Mercedes-Benz executive was asked, will these new autonomous Mercedes that you're developing...

Will they privilege the riders?

And the executive said, well, yes, because, you know, at least, you know, you can save the people in the car.