12. Sebastian Talks About Self-Driving Car Risks

Self-Driving Cars and Risk

Here Sebastian talks about the Trolley Problem , which is a classic philosophical problem. In the original version of the trolley problem, a train trolley is about to run over five people tied to the tracks.

You are standing next to a lever that could switch the trolley to a different track. But there is also one person standing on the other track. Do you:

• pull the lever so that the trolley switches tracks and runs over one person?
• do nothing and the trolley runs over five people?

You might hear people talk about self-driving cars in terms of the trolley problem. How should a self-driving car should be programmed if the car found itself in a trolley-like situation?

In this hypothetical scenario, the car would have to choose to either run over five pedestrians or change course to run over one pedestrian. Or you might hear a hypothetical situation where the vehicle needs to decide between protecting vehicle passengers or hitting a pedestrian.

Here is Sebastian's take on the trolley problem and how the problem relates to self-driving car risks: