Self Driving Cars (3) Enter, The Philosopher

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Enter, the philosopher; center stage, the engineer

A philosopher is perhaps the last person you’d expect to have a hand in designing your next car, but that’s exactly what one expert on self-driving vehicles has in mind.

Chris Gerdes, a professor at Stanford University, leads a research lab that is experimenting with sophisticated hardware and software for automated driving. But together with Patrick Lin, a professor of philosophy at Cal Poly, he is also exploring the ethical dilemmas that may arise when vehicle self-driving is deployed in the real world.

Gerdes and Lin organized a workshop at Stanford earlier this year that brought together philosophers and engineers to discuss the issue.

Reference:  How to Help Self-Driving Cars Make Ethical Decisions.