By Jonathan Shanahan
Of all the technologies currently emerging, few have the potential to be as revolutionary as driverless cars. Few, also, are as controversial. The benefits promised by driverless cars are far reaching, with major implications for pollution, safety and lifestyle. They could completely change the way we travel. But they also raise thorny ethical questions. With the government planning to allow driverless vehicles on UK roads by the end of 2026, these questions are taking on increased urgency.
Safety
In terms of safety, autonomous vehicles are likely to reduce deaths simply due to the fact that most accidents are caused by people (94% according to data from the US government). Even in ideal conditions, humans are prone to poor decision making and lapses in concentration. The results are often disastrous: from June 2019 – June 2020 there were 24,470 people killed or seriously injured in accidents on UK roads.
Driverless cars have the potential to dramatically reduce these numbers. They utilise impressively advanced technologies to navigate and detect hazards, and these technologies are generally a lot more reliable than humans. For example, a driverless car is much less likely to miss a stop sign. It also will not fall asleep at the wheel, drive aggressively, or engage in any of the other reckless behaviours that often lead to tragedy.
However, for the true safety benefits of autonomous vehicles to materialise, their adoption will have to become widespread. Most experts agree that once driverless vehicles are the dominant mode of transport the rate of collisions will dramatically fall. But we are a long way away from that, and in the meantime driverless cars might interact with their manually controlled counterparts in unpredictable ways.
Pollution
The benefits as far as pollution is concerned are also likely to become most evident once autonomous vehicles are the norm, rather than the exception. This is because one of the main causes of unnecessary pollution is inefficient driving. Motorways are a perfect example of this, where drivers using the wrong lane or travelling slower than necessary can have major compounding effects, leading to huge amounts of preventable emissions. Roads filled with autonomous vehicles will flow much more smoothly, avoiding traffic jams and bottlenecks.
Additionally, nearly all of them will be electric and, whilst the benefits of electrification are not unique to driverless cars, as they become more common this will have a dramatic impact on emissions and air quality. This will be especially noticeable in cities. Research has shown that the highly polluted air in densely populated areas leads to numerous respiratory conditions and often has a detrimental effect on longevity.
Lifestyle
There is another, more subtle benefit of driverless cars that will be harder to measure but no less profound: time previously spent driving will suddenly become available for other things. This has the potential to radically change the lives of commuters, with ramifications for both productivity and stress levels for a large part of the workforce. Statistics show that the average commute time in the UK is 1 hour 38 minutes. This is either spent actively driving or on public transport which is often busy and loud, not an ideal environment for getting things done or chilling out. Driverless cars will offer a quiet, private space perfect for both working and relaxing. The quality-of-life benefits this will bring for those who regularly commute are hard to overstate.
The ethics of driverless cars
Despite all these advances, driverless cars are an incredibly polarising and controversial subject. There are two main reasons for this. The first, and most talked about, concerns ethical problems that can often seem intractable. For example, imagine a scenario in which a collision with pedestrians is unavoidable, and the car must decide who to hit. Or a situation in which the car must choose between killing either a child or its occupant. How should a vehicle be programmed to behave in these situations?
There is something deeply uncomfortable about these questions, and with good reason. Ultimately, these vehicles are programmed by people who have to decide how the vehicle will behave in any given situation. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to who to save in a collision, so the ‘choice’ made by the car will, on some level, reflect the choice that the designers would have made. And this choice might be different from the one that you think is right.
The other main issue is the displacement of those who work as drivers. Autonomous trucks are already being used with great success, and ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have begun rolling out services powered by driverless cars. As in other industries, automation stands to greatly reduce operating costs for corporations at the expense of jobs. Mechanics are also likely to find their work greatly reduced as collisions fall.
What does the future hold?
Clearly, when it comes to autonomous vehicles, the situation is extremely complex. Debate between proponents and detractors often gets heated. On the one hand, driverless cars will save lives, reduce pollution, and bring quality of life improvements for many. On the other, they may destroy the employment prospects of vast numbers of people and remove human control in ways that many find deeply unsettling. Ultimately, the responsibility will fall on governments to regulate these new vehicles in a sensible way and be proactive in helping a displaced workforce find new jobs. This will not be easy, but getting it right will unlock a safer, cleaner, more comfortable future.