this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Fuck Cars

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A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!

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[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Users here don't understanding the dilemma nor the programmatic aspects.

The car has to be programmed to solve the dilemma on the spot:

  1. Crush the people outside to save the people inside.
  2. Intentionally crash into a large object or veer off road and risk crashing into a ditch.

Not talking about it won't make this go away. It will simply be some decision made by developers and maybe there's a toggle for the car owner, a kill switch. Either way, it's lose-lose.

As we're in fuck cars, I'm assuming that people understand that fuck cars. Why should this impunity of killing with cars be furthered by encoding it in automatic programming? Let the owners of vehicles face the immediate consequences of owning such vehicles. That's fair. Don't want to die in your robocar? Fine, drive very slowly and very rarely.

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)
  1. Crush the people outside to save the people inside.
  1. Intentionally crash into a large object or veer off road and risk crashing into a ditch.

What?

That's not what happened here, and I struggle to imagine any situation where that's the only two options.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I struggle to imagine any situation where that’s the only two options.

Alright, I'll take this in good faith. Here's how that happens:

Speeding.

As we all know here, speeding makes crashes way worse, and it makes the braking function fail proportionally.

So, imagine:

The killer road bot is speeding through a street. It's a bit narrow, there are cars parked illegally on the sides.

The killer road bot enters an intersection and makes a left turn with speed and a there's someone on a crosswalk.

The killer road bot controls at least these aspects of the car: brakes, acceleration, steering. The brakes can be engaged, but the speed makes them useless in preventing running over the person on the crosswalk. The acceleration is not useful. Everything is happening too fast really, and the killer road bot can't even calculate which direction the person is walking in on the crosswalk.

The only useful control left is direction by steering. The killer road bot thus has these choices:

  1. Maintain course, run over person on crosswalk
  2. Change course

Choice 1 leads to the obvious outcome.

Choice 2 branches out:

2.1. Turn left

2.2. Turn right

If the killer road bot turns left (2.1), it flips the car over and sends it rolling into other cars, thus endangering the passenger(s).

If the killed road bot turns right (2.2), it hits a large tree.

These are the only options.

edit: typo

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh I get now. You have a preconceived agenda that makes this discussion entirely pointless. Either that or you value the trolley problem way too much.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world -4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, my agenda is public health and equality. I don't like it when a special class of people has impunity for roaming the land harming people, even less so when that's automatic.

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Which is why you want them to carry a bomb?

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world -2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Self-destruct doesn't exclusively mean "blow up". When the AI system chooses to run off the road or into some tree, that's also self-destruction.

[–] GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago

TOO FAST FOR BRAKES

[–] ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

if you want equality, then why do you want to get rid of cars? Do you actively hate disabled people?

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

then why do you want to get rid of cars?

because cars are a means of stratification and denial of rights . Cars can never be universal rights. It's literally impossible, so they have inequality baked in as a "car system".

Do you actively hate disabled people?

Quite the opposite.

[–] Freeman@lemmings.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean a autonomous vehicle should be programmed to not speed and even not drive faster than reasonable in the present condition.

In switzerland we have a law that you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed with wich you can come to a full stop at the farthest spot on the road that you can see. (So in a curve you have to drive slowly, because there could be something on the street right in front of you.)

If a autonomous vehicle respects such rules, then it at least has eniugh time to calculate several outcomes and choose one which has the least damage potential.

The trolleyproblem is not applicable here as its not a theoretical situation but a practical one.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

A practical situation is also a theoretical situation when you talk about it.