Beyond the Binary

 Computers have been making decisions in binary for as long as they have existed. Zeros and ones are responsible for all the technological advancements made prior to and in the Informage Age. As automatic vehicles now take on the roads, old moral dilemmas are resurfacing as well and are being incorporated into important decision-making processes. 

The Trolley Problem:

Let's talk about the trolley problem. With its first variations originating in 1905, the problem has been a centerpiece of moral philosophical discussions. You might have come across it in one of your high school or college courses especially if you're into philosophy. If you haven't or are not familiar with the trolley problem, it goes as follows: 

You're standing next to a lever that controls an oncoming trolley. This trolley, if not interfered with, will keep going on its track and run over five people tied to its track. If you pull the lever and interfere with the trolley's natural pathway, you will divert the trolley to a different track that has one person tied to the track and will die if the trolley runs over. 

So if you don't pull the lever, the trolley kills five people. If you pull the lever, one person dies. The question then presents itself very naturally: Should you pull the lever at all? And if so, why? Here you have a binary situation. You must either not pull the lever or pull the lever. There can only be two outcomes in this scenario. 

The Tesla Problem:

Let's switch gears to the 21st century now. I made this neat little edit to the picture used above.

A driverless Tesla approaches two tracks. Elon Musk stands and contemplates where the lever once used to be. Will he program his car to kill five people or swerve and kill one? 

This scenario, however, isn't going to be binary in real life. People are not going to be tied to crosswalks. The situation presented is so limited and restricted that it escapes the reality of similar situations in daily life.  These decisions will be made split-second and with new variables involved in every different scenario. A better look at this problem would be the following: 

Will the blue automatic vehicle kill the baby or the old lady? What considerations will it take into account when making the decision? Will the age or gender of either of the human beings matter? What if the vehicle doesn't have to kill either of them and instead swerve on the curb and crash into a tree killing the passenger or the driver inside. What if the vehicle decides to kill the baby but someone decides to jump in the last second to pick the baby up and he gets hit by the car instead? What if the vehicle is engineered to detect human activity around a certain area as it enters it and limits the speed of the vehicle to just enough so it can stop in time if a situation like this is presented? Or what if the vehicle, when swerved to the side to avoid both pedestrians, ends up crashing into the sidewalk and flips over both of the pedestrians and kills them anyway along with the passenger? There are a lot of variables involved and in turn, a lot of outcomes. To apply some of these outdated binary moral dilemmas to these real-life situations in the modern-day is more destructive than constructive. There is a lot that goes into making these decisions than just a single decision with a singular outcome. 

So...What's the answer? 

I do not know. And I'm glad I am not in a position to find one either. In fact, no one knows. Unlike many other things in life, for this one, I'm happy to sit on the sidelines and see where this goes. Partly because I personally might never buy an automatic vehicle to fully depend on the automatic features that it comes with. Sure - in a few decades when I'm 50, automatic vehicles might take over the road completely and I might have to then consider if I want my loved ones using crosswalks at all. Or Elon might send us all to Mars and we'll start over. There are a lot of uncertainties with fully automatic vehicles that I'll let the Government and Industry leaders comb through and go with it. What I do know is that if I had a hundred grand laying around right now, I would head over to Tesla's website and complete my purchase (everything is already ready in the cart 😓). Not because of the automation, but because of how cool it looks.