Autonomous automobiles and the trolley problem

Abstract

Autonomous vehicles employ advanced sensor technology to detect surroundings and sophisticated algorithms to predict the trajectory of nearby moving objects. Self-driving cars can also use information technology to communicate with each other, thereby achieving better coordination among various vehicles on the road. However, since automobiles are heavy and move at high speeds they have limited maneuverability and often cannot stop before traversing a significant distance. Therefore, even if automobile-to-automobile communication, sensors and algorithms are all functioning properly, autonomous automobiles will not always have sufficient time before collision with objects that suddenly change direction. It is inevitable that self-driving automobiles will sometimes collide with each other, with human-driven automobiles, and with pedestrians