The Pros And Cons Of Autonomous Vehicles

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Autonomous vehicles will be an element of the not-too-distant future. While legal, ethical, security and policy issues abound, automakers continue to develop autonomous technology. Many fear ceding control to new technology, but the positives are too great to pass up. Companies see the opportunity to make money and in the process save lives and make other’s lives better. Ethically speaking, autonomous vehicles impact individuals positively. People that never had the possibility of driving would now be mobile (Stenquist, 2014). Whether a person is too old to drive safely, disabled, seizure-prone or any other reason someone might be unable to drive, they will find autonomous vehicles provide them with freedom (Ramsey, 2015). If the technology …show more content…

The legal system will no longer be bogged down with traffic citations and impaired-driving legal proceedings (Zagorsky, 2015). The legal system then inherits the ability to concentrate on serious infractions of the law. It is not too difficult to imagine crime rates going down and urban areas become more livable. From the perspective of security, society will likely experience no change with the implementation of driverless cars. One may wonder how difficult it would be to hack into the technology behind autonomous vehicles. Many things are hackable. That does not mean that we avoid the implementation of innovative technology. To protect society, those in the technology business must strive to stay ahead of those who seek to break the law for personal gain. Developing laws that govern the use of driverless technology will be a hurdle that society must clear. We, as a society, must continuously develop and amend these policies. As new problems pop up, new solutions develop. The realm of technology is always changing and the laws will change with …show more content…

Autonomous vehicles will have to make real-time life and death decisions. If one reaction can cause one death, and another reaction will cause more than one, the technology will choose the smallest amount of life lost (Auto Insurance Center, 2017). What if the computer chooses to run over a child that chased a toy into the street rather than swerve into oncoming traffic risking many lives? Would we be okay with entrusting a logical and unfeeling computer program to make these kinds of decisions? Computer programs do not react emotionally, but they also do not have to live with their decisions. The people using, operating and developing the technology live with the decisions made by computers. The U.S. Department of Transportation ascribes each human life a value. That value is $9.2 million (Auto Insurance Center, 2017). This seems a rather arbitrary number. Should an 80-year-old life be valued the same as a child of only 8 years? Driverless cars ultimately save lives and money. People will enjoy the benefits of this new development in technology. While the ethics are still cloudy, the fact remains that a computer can judge dangerous situations more effectively than a person. The potential growth can only be hampered by man-kinds illogical

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