Group Assignments (maximum number of 10 people per group )
Why Uber’s self-driving car killed a pedestrian
THEY are one of the most talked-about topics in technology, but lately they have been for all the wrong
reasons. A series of accidents involving self-driving cars has raised questions about the safety of these
futuristic new vehicles, which are being tested on public roads in several American states. In March
2018 an experimental Uber vehicle, operating in autonomous mode, struck and killed a pedestrian in
Tempe, Arizona, the first fatal accident of its kind. On May 24th America’s National Transportation
Safety Board (NTSB) issued its preliminary report into the crash. What caused the accident, and what
does it say about the safety of autonomous vehicles (AVs) more broadly? The computer systems that
drive cars consist of three modules. The first is the perception module, which takes information from the
car’s sensors and identifies relevant objects nearby. The Uber car, a modified Volvo XC90, was
equipped with cameras, radar and LIDAR (a variant of radar that uses invisible pulses of light). Cameras
can spot features such as lane markings, road signs and traffic lights. Radar measures the velocity of
nearby objects. LIDAR determines the shape of the car’s surroundings in fine detail, even in the dark.
The readings from these sensors are combined to build a model of the world, and machine-learning
systems then identify nearby cars, bicycles, pedestrians and so on. The second module is the prediction
module, which forecasts how each of those objects will behave in the next few seconds. Will that car
change lane? Will that pedestrian step into the road? Finally, the third module uses these predictions to
determine how the vehicle should respond (the so-called “driving policy”): speed up, slow down, or
steer left or right. Of these three modules, the most difficult to build is the perception module, says
Sebastian Thrun, a Stanford professor who used to lead Google’s autonomous-vehicle effort. The
hardest things to identify, he says, are rarely-seen items such as debris on the road, or plastic bags
blowing across a highway. In the early days of Google’s AV project, he recalls, “our perception module
could not distinguish a plastic bag from a flying child.” According to the NTSB report, the Uber vehicle
struggled to identify Elaine Herzberg as she wheeled her bicycle across a four-lane road. Although it
was dark, the car’s radar and LIDAR detected her six seconds before the crash. But the perception
system got confused: it classified her as an unknown object, then as a vehicle and finally as a bicycle,
whose path it could not predict. Just 1.3 seconds before impact, the self-driving system realised that
emergency braking was needed. But the car’s built-in emergency braking system had been disabled, to
prevent conflict with the self-driving system; instead a human safety operator in the vehicle is expected
to brake when needed. But the safety operator, who had been looking down at the self-driving system’s
display screen, failed to brake in time. Ms Herzberg was hit by the vehicle and subsequently died of her
injuries. The cause of the accident therefore has many elements, but is ultimately a system-design failure.
When its perception module gets confused, an AV should slow down. But unexpected braking can cause
problems of its own: confused AVs have in the past been rear-ended (by human drivers) after slowing
suddenly. Hence the delegation of responsibility for braking to human safety drivers, who are there to
catch the system when an accident seems imminent. In theory adding a safety driver to supervise an
imperfect system ensures that the system is safe overall. But that only works if they are paying attention
to the road at all times.
Adapted from The Economist article published on the 29th of May 2018.
Page 1 of 2
1. Describe any five (5) ethical challenges of autonomous vehicles. [10]
2. Recommend how the challenges identified in Question 1a), can be controlled. [10]
3. Who was liable for this accident? Justify your answer. [5]
4. Using examples from the case study define responsibility and its four (4) facets. [5]
Assignment 2:
1. How do you safeguard the misuse of bandwidth at an institution like Midlands State University? [10]
2. Describe your understanding of digital divide and how it perpetuates existing inequalities such as
gender, race and power between those who have and those who have no access to the technology.
[10]
3. Technology often creates a homogenising effect on cultures, leading to a decrease in diversity,
which can have both positive and negative ethical implications. Using real world examples, express
your views on this statement. [10]
Page 2 of 2