Lost In The New World

Conditions: Crisp

It’s Actually About Ethics in Driverless Cars

There’s a whole lot of hoo-ha about the oncoming driverless cars, and how they’ll make us puny humans obsolete. I remain unconvinced. And I’m not alone. Recently an expert in the field has finally started asking some complicated questions about how this imagined utopia is actually supposed to work.

“We need to take a step back and say, ‘Wait a minute, is that what we should be programming the car to think about? Is that even the right question to ask?’ ” Gerdes said. “We need to think about traffic codes reflecting actual behavior to avoid putting the programmer in a situation of deciding what is safe versus what is legal.”

Gerdes, 46, who is training to be a racecar driver, initially dismissed the need to grapple with philosophy. Autonomous cars programmed with robot reflexes and precision were on track to drastically reduce the 33,000 U.S. highway deaths a year. Wasn’t that moral enough? But then three years ago George Bekey, co-author with Lin of a book, Robot Ethics, emailed Gerdes.

“My first thought was, ‘Ethics? Automated cars? This seems like a bit of a fringe topic,’ ” Gerdes said.

He soon came to see both its significance and its painful complexity. For example, when an accident is unavoidable, should a driverless car be programmed to aim for the smallest object to protect its occupant? What if that object turns out to be a baby stroller? If a car must choose between hitting a group of pedestrians and risking the life of its occupant, what is the moral choice? Does it owe its occupant more than it owes others?

- santafenewmexican.com

Make no mistake, these situations are going to happen and the computers are going to have to make a decision. And no matter that decision, it will come under criticism too. It will be interesting to see how future engineers will create systems that can fairly evaluate the worth of human lives.



Film Review: Ex Machina

Ex Machina talks a good game. It’s smart and sleek, it’s focused and looks amazing. But when you really get down to it, there’s nothing here. It’s a well made movie that’s basically a story about a jail break. Meet Caleb. He is us, the audience surrogate. Before you can say “A.I” he wins a company lottery and is whisked off to his boss’s house, a sprawling ultra-modern bunker-like structure set in the middle of a forest. And here’s Nathan, the boss. He’s relaxed, confident and at leisure in this hidden-away paradise. And he wants Caleb to test out this new robot girl he’s built to see if she passes as properly artificially intelligent. Of course he does. So Caleb then settles down to a series of chats with Ava. Being a normal, ordinary 21st century guy, Caleb is immediately infatuated with Ava and begins to think of her as a person rather than fetching-looking clockwork.

Eventually things start to get interesting once Caleb is properly hooked to Ava’s charms. Eventually he’s ready to believe anything she says, so when she tells him not to trust Nathan, Caleb is more than willing to turn against his boss. He comes up with a plan to get Ava out of the complex and presumably away to the safety of civilisation, but surprisingly when Nathan discovers the plan he becomes angry and punches Caleb out. No wait, I mean not surprisingly at all. It was actually the most obvious thing ever. More obvious and violent things then proceed to happen, and the film ends with Ava escaping alone.

So what was it really all about? Are we meant to judge Ava for using stupid humans in order to escape her prison? Are we meant to feel bad for Caleb, or even Nathan for that matter? Or is this really about having a conversation over what sentience really means, and whether a simulation of consciousness is basically the same as the actual thing? All I know is, the film is a bit of a pretentious bore, all sleek surfaces and no actual depth. Three sushi knives out of five.



- Peace out