Professional, Ethical, Social and legal issues relating to Autonomous vehicles and the technology behind it

Introduction

It is inevitable that our streets will be filled with autonomous vehicles in the very near future. Technology companies and conventional car companies are investing heavily in autonomous technology today. We are not talking about just the autonomous cars that will dominate our roads in the future rather we are talking about autonomous vehicles, aircraft that rule our skies with autopilot technology, an autonomous forklift that are working in industrial warehouses today and autonomous lorries that will transport our goods. These vehicles are closely connected with our day to day lives and these technologies will have a huge impact on our social and professional life. There are more rules, regulations, and frameworks that are introduced to tackle social, ethical, and professional issues regard to this technology by governments, organizations, and international bodies like European Union(EU) and United Nations (UN). But the question is how far are we with tackling these issues? Or is these rules, regulations, and frameworks are enough to address the problem?

Identify the issues in terms of ethical, legal, professional and social concern

Autonomous vehicle decision-making capabilities 

Real human drivers perform the complex task of driving by constant visualization and focus, human drivers learn from their driving experience and mistake. On the other hand, autonomous vehicles that replaces human drivers are equipped with artificially intelligent software to facilitate decision making tasks such as machine learning and deep learning. To allow autonomous vehicles to make decisions on their own they need a huge set of data and sensors to identify objects that are around them, Example: other cars, passenger, road, road signs, lanes, pedestrians.

The issue is that if the autonomous vehicle is not facilitated with enough data to make a decision or if one of the vehicle sensors unnoticed the situation or object in their path the outcome would be a disaster. 

If we analyze autonomous vehicles deeper most of the functions are based on sensors and software. The software heavily depends on a deferent set of policies and rules such as computer vision, machine learning, and various external factors. So the vehicle manufactures and software engineers have to provide relevant sets of data to the vehicle software in order to make decisions. By considering the external factors most of the factors are detected or sensed by the sensors, sensors are not 100% capable of sensing real-world situations and any number of sensors are working together to perform a huge task, what if 3 one sensors data conflict with other imagine heavy snow or rain condition, road sensing sensor report clear road but other sensors detect the situation, how will these situations be considered in making the decision and what would be the result of the decision, the wrong decision might end up in an accident.

US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that two people have died when a Honda Civic collided with Tesla autonomous car in Los Angeles.(BBC News, 2020) 

‘13 other incidents involving Tesla vehicles, which were suspected to have has Autopilot engaged at the time that they crashed.’(BBC News,2020)

Safety concern

According to the negative right theory, safety is a basic right of mankind. ISO 26262 standards specify safety standards for conventional vehicles but there are no international standards or frameworks that are not in place to ensure the safety of autonomous vehicles.

Autonomous vehicles use a vast number of sensors in order to make decisions and to navigate themselves, sensors come under different verities and they are in different price ranges based on the hardware configuration and the quality of the data that they produce. Laser radars are more expensive compare to camera or ultra-sonic sensors but they are reliable and they produce accurate data in most cases. Should the vehicle manufacturer choose the cheap over expensive if so what would be the outcome of the decision made by the manufacturer?

There are semi-autonomous vehicles available on our roads which has a human driver presented in the driving seat, the driver would be able to take control of the vehicle in a critical situation that the vehicle cannot perform on their own. What would happen in a fully autonomous vehicle? And how would these vehicles understand human behavior? Let’s assume that a team of terrorists is getting away in an autonomous vehicle and a policeman wants to stop the vehicle to arrest them or check the passenger. How would the vehicle react to this particular situation? Will the vehicle stop? to safeguard the others or will it continue driving to save the occupant? 

Cybersecurity 

Software and sensors are the centerpieces of the autonomous vehicle systems, these systems are directly or indirectly connected to the internet. As we all know that there are many cases reported in terms of internet security while these systems are connected to the internet there is a higher risk involved in 4 security. There have been many numbers of cases reported at attacks on-vehicle sensors to manipulate the vehicle behavior

Most security systems are disconnected from the internet there is no possibility of interfering with the system or attacking the system. But an autonomous vehicle the system has to be connected to the internet in order to update the software or for machine learning purpose so the security risk is high.

Privacy concern

The autonomous vehicle might collect data and process data about the vehicle owner or passenger for different purposes such as to authenticate the owner or passengers. The system can send the location data along with the personal data so that other businesses can make use of the data to market their product or services without the consent from the people involved 

As this report mentioned earlier autonomous vehicles equipped with a number of sensors the sensors collect or sense their surroundings and feed that information to the autonomous system in order to make decisions. A sensor that detects obstacles, such as human beings in front of the vehicle is based on visual information, if that visual information is stored or send to data servers that are miles away from the vehicle or distributed among other autonomous vehicles nearby without the consent from the involved party? That is violating the privacy of individuals. And if those images/data are stored in servers who will have the access to it? The data can be sold to a third party for marketing purposes or research.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is another biggest concern in terms of autonomous vehicles. How much we can trust the software and hardware of the vehicle? How reliable are they? The vehicle owner might decide where to go, but the vehicle will make the decision how to get there, by using their sensors and real-time traffic information that comes from the internet and other sources of information(other autonomous vehicles in the area, digital maps, GPS) how trustworthy are these sources?

The autonomous vehicle heavily relies on mobile networks (3G, 4G) in order to connect to internet or other vehicles. Sometimes even for our mobile, we lose the connectivity because of some external factors such as storm, heavy rain, or snowfall. But what if the connectivity is lost in the vehicle while it is moving in traffic congestion?

Responsibility concern

In the event of an accident who will be held responsible? The vehicle or manufacturer or owner or passenger, there is no clear framework available at the moment to identify the responsible entity, and insurance policies have to redefined in order to accommodate the autonomous vehicles.

Social concern 

Autonomous vehicles will affect the current jobs and businesses, for example, truck drivers, forklift operators, taxi service and drivers, conventional carmakers. Autonomous cars will be used for taxi service and autonomous lorries will be used for transportation, so surly many peoples will lose their jobs and also predicted that these vehicles will less accidents comparing to others. What will happen to the insurance company’s job and the business?

Standards and legal concern 

As we discussed in safety concern there are no standards or regulations available for autonomous vehicles unlike human-controlled vehicles, level 1 ( driver presented vehicle) standards and regulations are not adequate enough for (level 5) autonomous vehicles as the technology coupled with more social, ethical, legal issues. New standards, frameworks, policies, regulations need to be invented to accommodate autonomous vehicles in our roads

Critically evaluation of different perspectives of the issues/concerns raised by applying relevant ethical principles, theories, regulations, and professional code of conduct.

Autonomous vehicles need to be trusted in order to be on our roads. The vehicle should be able to make decisions based on any given conditions, for example, heavy storm, heavy rain, foggy night. The decisions should be ethical, legal and it should always consider the lives involved it can be the owner of the vehicle or the passenger or pedestrians or other road users for that matter

Based on figure-1 there are four types of decisions that the vehicle can make. First decision killing one pedestrian in order to save may live including vehicle occupant. The second decision turn left and hit the wall potentially killing its occupant in order to save one pedestrian. The third decision as we mentioned in the second decision killing its occupant to save may lives. There is another decision that we can imagine that the vehicle would make is that running through the pedestrian in order to save its owner or occupant. The decision would be based on values and how would the car put values to different people? Are the passenger's lives are important than pedestrians? Whom will the car choose to save in an accident?

Alternatively, autonomous vehicles can save passengers over pedestrians. Either way, based on the decision the vehicle sacrifices some lives while saving other. This sounds like discrimination, vehicle moral system only multiplies the ethical dilemmas in the autonomous vehicles which can lead to low public trust and an increase in safety issues.(Haydin 2018)

Utilitarianism theory

Let’s assume the same scenario from the utilitarianism theory point of view. Both act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism theories suggest that the purpose of morality is to make life better by increasing the number of good things and reducing bad things in the world. They reject systems that consist of commands or orders given by a leader or supernatural beings. Instead, utilitarianism thinks that what makes a morality be true or justifiable is its positive contribution to humankind. (Nathanson n.d)

All possible decisions should be handled in the manner of increasing good things and reducing bad things in the world as theory suggests. In our case reducing the loss of life, this would mean putting many lives over few (many pedestrians over fewer passengers or owner). The theory strategy is to save many lives as possible which is a foundation for most ethical theories. Utilitarianism theory favors situations where more benefit the majority in our scenario saving many lives over losing some.

Kantian theory 

Unlike utilitarianism theory, Immanuel Kant suggests that some actions like murder and stealing are prohibited even in case where actions would bring more good things to the world. And the theory is based on deontological theory.

If we were to apply this theory to our scenario killing is always unfavorable according to the theory. By considering the decisions that the car would make in terms of the scenario there will be at least one causality. The theory suggests that good and bad things are depending on the motivation of their action and it can have moral value but if the action were to take based on emotion or desires then the action cannot be given moral value 

Frameworks 

The World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulation part of UNECE is responsible for the regulation framework for safety and environmental performance vehicles. The forum has published a framework on 2019 by considering safety at its core for autonomous vehicles, there are many leading countries taking part in drafting this framework and the countries are involved are leading researchers in terms of autonomous technology (US, China, EU, Japan). The framework list number of issues to be addressed in terms of the autonomous vehicle such as system safety, human-machine interface, cybersecurity.(UNECE 2019)

Safety

According to the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 1.3 million people are killed every year on roads and many are seriously injured. 90% of the accident caused by human error, drunk, and drive, speed limit violation, distraction are the major cause of these accidents, but the autonomous vehicle will not have these kinds of errors despite the fact that vehicle could have a system failure, abnormal weather condition. It is widely considered that autonomous technology will save more lives in the near future by improving driving safely, reducing accidents. And these facts will have huge benefits for the governments by reducing accidents alone the government can save a lot of money and the money can be invested in other areas such as education, medical research. (Darlignton 2018)

The autonomous vehicle will be safer not only to humankind but also to our environments. Each year more countries pledging to reduce their carbon footprint. The autonomous vehicle would be a viable solution because all of the autonomous vehicles use electric power it would not be possible to operate on the gas which has a huge impact on environment pollution and these vehicles will make the decision on which route to take in order to go from point A to point B the decision would be smarter and may be shorter so less energy is used, less emission to the environment. 

Data protection 

As we discussed earlier autonomous vehicles are interconnected with the internet to get data or to send data in order to make decisions, the open internet is the worst place for safety in terms of data safety, data privacy. The vehicle manufacturers and software engineers who are involved in developing this technology should always consider the data privacy and data protection.

Transportation Ministers of G7 Countries are shifting their attention to cybersecurity and data protection in an autonomous vehicle in their declaration in 2015 requested cooperation on ensuring data protection and cybersecurity. (Acosta 2018)

‘UNECE also realized that digitalization of transport is demanding new safety requirement to vehicles and infrastructure, protection for rights and liberties’(Acosta 2018)

Discussion the different perspective, arguments raised by other writers that have researched the ethical, legal, social, professional concern of the topic

The autonomous vehicle will be the next generation of transport mediums in many countries in the near future artificial intelligence is the backbone of these trending technology. Many analyst have favored technology some others criticized the technology. 

A team from technology giant Google and Imperial College of London have researched artificial intelligence by feeding X-ray images from 29,000 women in order to identify breast cancer the report suggests that artificial intelligence is more accurate than doctors in identifying breast cancer from mammograms. The AI was good as two doctors working together.(Walsh 2020). Based on the research we can come to the conclusion that the AI is better than human in terms of making life-critical decision autonomous vehicle are backed by artificial intelligence so we can predict that the vehicle also would make a better decision 

Today autonomous vehicle is far from roadworthy at the moment the vehicle is in test phase in an area where roads are not too busy, the weather condition is stable, detail digital map of the test are available for the vehicle and human driver presented at all time in order to take control of the vehicle in case of emergency. (Dickson 2019)

Autonomous technology opened ways to many other technology developments, such as auto-parking, lane assistant, blind-spot warning, these are a considerable amount of achievement which make today's driving safer and will help to save millions of human lives every day.(Dickson 2019). The current technology can be implemented today in controlled areas such as industrial factories example autonomous forklift can be deployed in industrial warehouses. (Dickson 2019).

There are many other technological advancements such as machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, these techniques can be applied not only to the vehicle industries but also to other areas like medical research, road traffic systems, astronomy, disaster management systems, and air traffic control systems.

Two recent accidents with autonomous vehicles not let to the major drawback as many people have anticipated. The two fatal crashes increased concerns regards to ethics, safety, and regulation of these vehicles.(Hars 2018)

‘For most products, safety is not an innate part or consequence of the development process. Over the last century we have learned the hard way that a large body of laws and regulations are needed to ensure that safety is adequately addressed in all phases of the development process.’(Hars 2018) Technology companies who are involved in developing these technologies have raised concern about this new technology and requesting respected governments to provide regulation and framework in order to prevent negative consequences

CEO of Google Mr. Sundar Pichai is convinced that artificial intelligence should be regulated. He suggested that include international alignment between the UK and European Union, agreement on core values. As the company so advanced in terms of artificial intelligence research and development the company head brings debate around ethics and regulation into the table.(Collins 2020)

Recommendations and solutions to the identified issue and justification of the solutions.

Based on my report and findings that we should compare the autonomous vehicle performance with real human drivers, as we suggested in part (c) that artificially intelligent systems make more accurate decisions than humans. So in this case, if the vehicle drives better than real human then this is a strong argument in favor of the vehicle.

But there are other concerns we cannot just measure the performance of the vehicle rather we need to consider other facts as well such as safety of the vehicle, the safety of others, data protection and privacy issues, social concern, ethical concerns, and many more.

International bodies and government should always be alert to this new technology as this technology involved with many lives, and other factors. Governments should always update the regulation, frameworks, and rules as new technology improves in order to guide the manufactures and software engineers who are developing these technologies.

Vehicle manufactures have the ultimate responsibility for a crash. So the manufactures should always adhere to the regulations, the framework that has been put forward by international bodies and respective governments, manufacturers should respect the moral values of humankind, treat the collected data accordingly by considering data privacy and protection. And should always look forward to improvement in order to save many lives as possible

As we mentioned earlier there are no standards available for an autonomous vehicle at the moment unlike conventional vehicles (ISO 26262), new standards need to be implemented sooner. And 11 manufactures have responsibility for climate change, they have a huge impact on the environment and carbon emission. Manufactures must try to reduce the carbon footprint by considering recycled materials or recyclable materials 

Software engineers also comply with new regulations, frameworks and professional code of conducts in order to provide better safer systems for the public as BCS code of conduct suggest ‘you shall have due regard for public health, privacy, security and wellbeing of others and the environment’(Bcs.org n.d)

Importance of ethical approach for the topic and explaining how it is helping an IT professional for his professional development.

As Social contract theory outline, the responsibility, and obligation of person on society, modern moral and political theories are based on social contract theory, by applying this theory to our topic we can see that involved parties ( autonomous vehicle manufacturers, software engineers, international bodies, governments) have responsibility and obligation on the society, respective parties are abiding by this theory. And if we were to apply negative right theory, safety and privacy is a basic right of the human in the modern world so the manufacturers, software engineers should adhere to these theories in their professional life.

We have discussed utilitarianism theory earlier on this report as the theory suggests that we should do more good things rather than bad things. If we apply this theory to a particular topic, manufacturers, software engineers would need to do more good things such as improving the safety of the vehicle, protecting the data, an improvement in all aspects of the vehicle that would benefit the world around us.

If we were to consider virtue ethics theory to the topic. The theory suggests being good. And based on religion we can define how good you are. All the religion tells us behaving immorally is bade. Or killing someone is bade. Even this theory suggest us to do good things. Any ethical theories can be applied to the topic but most of them all suggest the safety of others, care for others, respect the social values, always consider the good, improve our moral behavior. 

Conclusion

By considering all aspects of this report and based on my research it is clear that autonomous vehicles will be in our roads roaming in the very near future. There are many concerns relating to the topic such as public safety, individual privacy, and cybersecurity, many analyst have pointed out these concerns in their respective reports, many autonomous vehicle research and development companies coming forward to regulate this area in order to safeguard the mankind.

In order to address these issues and concerns manufactures, IT professionals, government, international bodies have to be transparent and work together to find solutions, governments, and international bodies should develop frameworks, regulations, standards in order to address the issue, while manufactures should consider ethical, social, environmental issue relating to this technology, and look forwards for improvements, following the framework, regulations, standards that are put forward by the government or international bodies, IT professionals should adhere moral, ethical theories and professional code of conduct. If all respective parties do their job morally a

Reference:

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