Trust, Acceptance and Ethics are Important Topics to Consider for Automated Driving

The aim of this workshop is to bring together automotive researchers with particular interest in the workshop topic. The expected outcome is a list of obstacles as well as potential solutions related to ethics in automated driving with focus on ethically inspired user interfaces and ethical decision making algorithms. The organizers commit to provide a platform for future exchange of problems, ideas and results related to ethics in automated driving. This way, we should be able to create shared understanding of goals, challenges and potential ways to overcome them...

Topics of Interest

Potential topics to be discussed at the workshop include, but are not limited to the following ethical issues:

  • Based on which moral rule set do (or should) humans make decisions in driving situations?
  • How can such rules be formalized?
  • How can information relevant to ethical decision making be displayed inside the vehicle?
  • Should automated vehicles be allowed to violate Asimov’s rules 1 and 2 in some cases (e.g., to choose the lesser of two evils)?
  • Different cultural regions have different moral norms. How can we make sure that cars with different normative systems can interoperate in a “friendly way”? (i.e., driving and negotiation functions automatically adapted to local conditions based on GPS location)
  • Conflict resolution strategies, i.e. when reaching a deadlock (two options with 50% probability each)
  • Should the vehicle even be allowed to make decisions on its own accord? Why (not)? And what are the consequences?
  • Should we allow for rule-bending according to political, cultural or religious difference-s? E.g. as of today, females are less rewarded in Saudi Arabia. Should this gender inequality be translated to algorithms in extreme decision making?
  • What is the right time to present ethically relevant information and how long should the system wait for human intervention/scored weighting in a no-win scenario?

Publication Plans

The workshop website will feature all accepted papers together with the outcomes of the workshop (posters of group sessions, brief summary of the discussions, etc.). In addition, it is planned to write a summary article. Depending on the number of submissions, we might propose a special issue at Springer PUC or Elsevier PMC Journal.