Should Machines Make Moral Choices? The Ethics of Technology

Imagine a self-driving car travelling at speed. Its brakes fail. The car's computer must choose: swerve left and hit one pedestrian, or go straight and hit five. The car makes this decision in milliseconds — with no human hand on the wheel. Here is the striking part: nobody programmed the car to choose who lives. The programmers just wrote rules about physics and safety. Yet the outcome is a life-or-death moral choice made by a machine. Who is responsible? The programmer? The company? The owner? The car itself? Hold those questions in your mind — they are at the heart of today's lesson.