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The Immoral Machine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 October 2019

JOHN HARRIS
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Abstract:

In a recent paper in Nature1 entitled The Moral Machine Experiment, Edmond Awad, et al. make a number of breathtakingly reckless assumptions, both about the decisionmaking capacities of current so-called “autonomous vehicles” and about the nature of morality and the law. Accepting their bizarre premise that the holy grail is to find out how to obtain cognizance of public morality and then program driverless vehicles accordingly, the following are the four steps to the Moral Machinists argument:

  1. 1) Find out what “public morality” will prefer to see happen.

  2. 2) On the basis of this discovery, claim both popular acceptance of the preferences and persuade would-be owners and manufacturers that the vehicles are programmed with the best solutions to any survival dilemmas they might face.

  3. 3) Citizen agreement thus characterized is then presumed to deliver moral license for the chosen preferences.

  4. 4) This yields “permission” to program vehicles to spare or condemn those outside the vehicles when their deaths will preserve vehicle and occupants.

This paper argues that the Moral Machine Experiment fails dramatically on all four counts.

Keywords

autonomous vehiclesdriverless vehiclespublic moralitythe Moral Machine Experiment
Type
Special Section: Open Forum
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2020 , pp. 71 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

I am indebted to Giulia Cavaliere, John Coggon, Tomi Kushner and David Lawrence for many helpful discussions of these issues throughout this paper and to Philippa Foot for discussions between 48 and 50 years ago.

References

Notes

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0637-6/ (last accessed 20 July 2019).

2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0637-6/ (last accessed 20 July 2019).

3. Philippa, F. The problem of abortion and the doctrine of the double effect in Virtues and Vices, Oxford: Basil Blackwell; 1978. (Originally appeared in the Oxford Review 1967;5.)Google Scholar

4. Harris, J. The survival lottery. Philosophy 1975;50:81–8; available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_survival_lottery (last accessed 20 July, 2019).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

5. Harris, J. Who owns my autonomous vehicle: Ethics and responsibility in artificial and human intelligence. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2018;27(4):500–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

6. Re A (Children) [2000] EWCA Civ 254, [2000] 4 All ER 961. This case did in fact recognize necessity as a defense to what would otherwise have been an unlawful killing, but noted that the judgment applied to this case alone and did not set a precedent. See also Harris, J. Human beings, persons and conjoined twins: An ethical analysis of the judgement in Re A. Medical Law Review 2002;9(3):221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also R v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC discussed in more detail below.

7. Harris, J. How to be good. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2016,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Harris, J. The value of life. London: Routledge; 1985.Google Scholar

8. R v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273 DC.

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens.

10. Harris, J. Human beings, persons and conjoined twins: An ethical analysis of the judgement in Re A. Medical Law Review 2002;9(3):221–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. The medical facts related here were agreed upon by several teams of doctors, including specialists from other hospitals called in as experts by the Court of Appeal. See also Note 6, Re A 2000, at 972, per Ward LJ.

12. Note 6, Re A 2000, at 987.

13. Central Manchester Healthcare Trust v. Mr and Mrs A and A Child (unreported).

14. Bunyan, N. “Bright and alert” Jodie makes rapid progress. Daily Telegraph Online; available at http://www.lineone.net/telegraph/2000/12/16/news/bright_45.html, posted 16 Dec 2000 (last accessed 20 July 2019).Google Scholar

15. Dworkin, R. Taking rights seriously. London: Duckworth; 1977, at 255.Google Scholar

16. See note 7, Harris 2016, chapters 1, 2, and 9.

17. See note 7, Harris 2016.

18. See note 7, Harris 2016, at 143.

19. See note 7, Harris 2016, chapter 2.

20. Unless there is no reason to prefer one outcome to another. Tossing a coin does not decide the better outcome, but does deliver an outcome.

21. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/38799/why-did-paul-von-hindenburg-wrongly-call-adolf-hitler-bohemian-corporal (last accessed 20 July 2019).

22. Irony alert!

23. There is a considerable literature on this distinction. For an easy entry into that literature see Harris, J. What it’s like to be good. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 2012;21(3):293–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

24. Following Swift J. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal (last accessed 20 July 2019).

25. Perhaps cars, like ships, are conventionally female?

26. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Oates (last accessed 24 July 2019).

27. See note 7, Harris 2016.