Solving Ethical & Safety Dilemmas: AutoSens Conference 2020
Currently, numerous think-tank organizations and policy making bodies are considering new automotive product liability law proposals. These may lower the standard of care requirement for AV operators by forming a public-private underwriting of the harm these vehicles can cause. Presently, autonomous vehicle safety technology is not as developed as feature function technology; as a result, vehicles may be introduced to the public with known product liability risks. This can happen as long as such risks are considered "acceptable" by society, and the governing body is acting as an executor on behalf of society in its negotiations of terms with AV developers and operators. It is not clear yet in which countries such AV safety negotiations by the governing body would be upheld or struck down if an actual case appeared in court.
According to these proposals, in the case of individual injury, the harm incurred by the plaintiff will be qualified against an estimated harm that would have been incurred by the plaintiff if the defendant (usually the AV operator or developer) had not deployed their autonomous vehicle product. Some questions to quantify this estimated harm could be, “How much greater or lesser harm would have occurred if a human driver had made a similar error than the harm incurred due to the error in the autonomous vehicle?”, or “How many more or less accidents would have occurred had a human been driving instead of an autonomous vehicle?” This is very different from traditional product liability law, which assesses whether or not the harm suffered by the plaintiff would have been more or less had the defendant (the AV operator or developer) fulfilled the standard of care by developing an appropriate safety technology or following the appropriate safety process.
In his talk, "Solving the Autonomous Ethical and Safety Dilemma" presented at the AutoSens Brussels 2020 conference, the CEO of Retrospect, Michael Woon, explains these basic elements of AV ethics and safety in a way that's easy for everyone to understand. Using the metaphor of the Trolley Problem, he explains how the challenge with autonomous vehicles always comes back to one thing: uncertainty. This presentation suggests that a proper, consistent solution to the Uncertainty Problem is to hold AV developers and operators responsible for uncertainty within their products, and to not re-assign the responsibility of their uncertainty to the government. In conclusion, the presentation reaffirms that because safety is the true goal, focusing on the safety technology by following well-trusted standards ensures that no person need be harmed or subject to increased risk during AV deployment, and no AV developer or operator need fear risk of product liability by fulfilling the standard of care.
Please share your thoughts with us! We would love to connect with lawyers, AV safety managers, policy makers, and anyone passionate about such issues to learn what you agree with, disagree with, or have additional concerns about. Please visit our consultation page to book a free initial consultation with our CEO, Michael Woon.
