Audi should be congratulated for including the public in debate on driverless cars

ETHICS have yet to play a huge role in the automotive industry, but they’re about to. With driverless cars soon becoming a reality on our roads, a frequent question car makers have faced from the public regards what the car will do in a lose-lose situation where an accident with pedestrians or other vehicles is unavoidable?

After all, uncertainty from our roads can never be reduced entirely through computer code. This has been a crippling question for many, and so far there has been no conclusive answer, apart from that ‘the car will be programmed to avoid an accident’.

But now Audi has said it will open up the discussion from behind closed boardroom doors to the public arena. Audi’s CEO, Rupert Stadler, recently told an audience at a United Nations congress that “alongside legal issues, ethical questions about the use of the new technology also needed to be discussed”.

With this in mind, Audi has launched a new Beyond initiative that will include public input on how driverless cars should behave on the road. The company has spent the last two years working with artificial intelligence experts to find answers, but admitted the industry alone “cannot answer the ethical and legal questions of autonomous driving”.

How the public will interact with the company is yet to be revealed, but this is a crucial first step. If we have to trust these cars with our safety in the future, it’s important we’re involved with the decisions on how the cars will act in difficult scenarios. Ethical questions have a habit of going unanswered, but this is one where a theoretical conclusion isn’t enough.

“Uncertainty from our roads can never be reduced entirely through computer code”