My name is Manfred Broy, I am a computer scientist by profession, a specialist in software and systems engineering.
A few years ago, I finished my professorship, although I am still doing a few projects along the side,
I am currently the founding president of the "Digitization Center Bavaria"
and I am confronted with all kinds of questions about digitization.
A few years ago, at the request of the then Minister of Transport, I decided to become a member of
“Ethics Commission on Autonomous Driving”.
This is noteworthy because it was the first ethics committee that also dealt with KI issues
and issues of interaction between artificial intelligence systems and people in situations that pose serious security problems.
So we discussed how a vehicle in a critical situation – speaking of
the ethics of so-called dilemma situations – has to react.
And that brings up interesting, new ethical questions, because people can get into such dilemma situations
and then usually respond quickly and instinctively right or wrong, and then it is up to the lawyers
to assess whether they have blamed themselves or not. Over the years, ethicists have developed a number of scenarios
that they have discussed very carefully and that set the ethical views.
Now, however, one realizes that this is immediately in an ethical dilemma,
since ethicists believe for example that it is not permissible to decide in a dilemma situation whether,
if a person is killed in an accident, one or the other person should be affected by the accident.
When people come into such a situation, they always blame themselves.
When faced with autonomous vehicles, the situation is different as these things are programmed in advance.
Interestingly, even in a situation in which it is not determined which individual persons are affected,
and thus the ethical question is slightly different.
However, if you answer this question in classical, conventional ethics in such a way that a decision cannot be made,
you immediately have the answer that you reject autonomous driving altogether.
Again, this is an ethical dilemma, as we believe that autonomous vehicles today
are likely to help prevent a whole range of accidents.
And that puts the ethicists themselves in a dilemma.