THE IMPACTS OF SELF-DRIVING

CARS ON SOCIETY
Course Details:

Course Title: Fundamentals of Computer System

Course ID: CIS 101

Section: 06

Submitted by:

Raihan Rahman

ID: 1830006

Submitted to:

Radiah Rose Haque

Lecturer

Independent University, Bangladesh

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Table of Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 1
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
1. Decision Making Process in Self-Driving Cars .......................................................................................... 2
2. ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN SELF-DRIVING CARS .......................................... 3
2.1 Societal Barriers .................................................................................................................................. 3
2.2 Safety .................................................................................................................................................. 3
2.2 Summary of the analysis result ........................................................................................................... 0
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................... 1
References .................................................................................................................................................... 1

Abstract
What will be the impacts self-driving cars on our society?
When we think of a car is travelling on the road, one thing we all used to know is a driver at the
steering wheel. The driver is in control and very crucial. If we remove the driver from a running
car, we would face a disastrous situation. Or would we? For a long time, self-driving technology
has been developed and experimented by universities, institutions, and companies. However,
the idea of a car without a driver raises the feelings of skepticism and doubt especially on the
ethical issues. Yet, as self-driving technology continues to evolve, one day we may no longer drive
cars. This document reviews the impacts on Safety, Security, Ethical aspects, Privacy, Trust,
Transparency, Cultural Changes and many other the important issues.
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Introduction
In 1977, a Japanese mechanical engineering laboratory carried out a project research of making
a self-driving car. The car followed white street markers and was capable of reaching speeds of
up to 20 mph on a dedicated test course (Forrest and Konca, 2007). In the 1980’s, the revolution
in the development of self-driving cars came in with the dedication of Ernst Dickmanns and his
team at Bundeswehr Universität München. Their prototype was capable of acquiring 60 mph at
the roads without traffic.

Since then, Mercedes Benz, General Motors, Nissan, Toyota, Audi, Volvo, Vislab, Google and
many big companies and research organizations have made working prototype of self-driving
cars.

With the ever increasing population and cities, more traffic is generated which has many
detrimental consequences. A less efficient transportation system costs people their safety, time
and money. Thus, the necessity for a more efficient, balanced and secure transportation system
is immense.

According to Holstein, Dodig-Crnkovic and Pelliccione (2018), prototypes of self-driving cars are
already running in roads and are planned to be sold in 2020. News and Media already made self-
driving cars a popular topic of the decade and the topic is recently amplified through latest
accidents with self-driving cars.

Recently, plenty of debate and ethical thought about self-driving cars have focused on tragic
dilemmas, like hypotheticals in which a car has to decide whether to run over a group of
schoolchildren or fall off a cliff, killing its own driver. Thus, it is important to discuss the social
issues and ethical challenges a self-driving car will face every day.

1. Decision Making Process in Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars will basically execute every tasks which a human does every day and will substitute a
human. Figure 1 shows both alternatives and allows a comparison.
 Figure 1: Comparison of human and computers sense, think and act process which we extended by adding a feedback loop (Holstein, Dodig-
Crnkovic and Pelliccione 2018).

In the feedback loop, there is a vital difference. Usually, Humans continuously learn from their errors or misconduct. However, automation
software might be limited to slow improvements. Methods like machine learning, which learns and reacts immediately, can overcome this
limitation (Holstein, Dodig-Crnkovic and Pelliccione, 2018).

According to Holstein, Dodig-Crnkovic and Pelliccione (2018) the self-driving car’s software might not notice or misinterpret unusual road signs
which are new, while they could be understood by a person through context/interpretation. Besides, an attack or threat near or even against the
car might not be properly interpreted by a self-driving car compared to a human. Nevertheless, this complex process might be difficult to
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imagine and in order to give an idea of what self-driving cars “see” we refer to the imagining showed in Figure 2. It shows a rendered point
cloud, based on the data gathered by a laser radar (LIDAR) mounted on the top of the car.

Figure 2: Point cloud image of a vehicle approaching an intersection illustrates the complexity. (Holstein, Dodig-Crnkovic and Pelliccione 2018)
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2. ETHICAL ASPECTS OF THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGES IN SELF-DRIVING CARS

2.1 Societal Barriers
Societal barriers arise mostly from the reformation of the labor market. Self-driving cars will lead to a decrease of the number of jobs in transport
and logistics (Hörl, Ciari and Axhausen, 2016).

According to Hörl, Ciari and Axhausen (2016), the important fact is that mainly jobs with low wages and limited expertise are eradicated, while
few are created, which need advanced technological knowledge. Nowadays, it might be a risky step to politically support the development of Self-
driving-car centered infrastructure in the traffic system. It is estimated that in order to transform individual benefits of single users into population-
wide societal benefits, regulatory actions must be taken. Nonetheless, it is also debated that “aggressive regulatory action is premature and can
perhaps do more harm than good”.

2.2 Safety
Safety matters have the most severe effect on everyday life out of all the transportation difficulties. In the EU, there are over 40,000 fatalities
with about 1.3 million injuries every 12 months (Forrest and Konca, 2007). The range of fatalities in traffic accidents inside the EU among the
years of 1970 to 2001 can be visible in figure 3. Those 1.3 million accidents value around 2 hundred billion yearly that's equivalent to 2% of the
EU Gross domestic Product (Forrest and Konca, 2007).

Figure 3: Fatalities in traffic accidents in the EU (Forrest and Konca 2007)

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Traveling by way of car is presently the most lethal way of transportation, with more than a million deaths annually worldwide. Thus, most of the
research projects in the transportation sector focus on developing safety systems.

Application of self-driving cars can greatly decrease the number of crashes, since almost 90 % of the traffic accidents are caused by human error.
In helping drivers avoid accidents, intelligent safety systems that are being used have proven their success. According to Forrest and Konca
(2007) EUROSTAT data found that the total road fatalities in the EU has been decreased from 56,027-39,849 people yearly between the years of
1991-2001. This data shows a reduction of about 30%, which reveals the better safety performance of new cars if compared to its older
generations. The table in Figure 2 displays the statistical data on the number of persons killed in traffic accidents per million persons. The
declining trend of deceases can noticeably be perceived in the statistics in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Number of persons killed in road accidents per million inhabitants (Forrest and Konca 2007)
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2.2 Summary of the analysis result
Summary of social challenges and recommendations grouped by requirement is given below-
Requirements
Social issues of troublesome
technology
General public interests
Security
Challenges
• Managing job losses
(e.g., drivers, traditional
mechanics, etc.)
 Change of markets and
business models (e.g.,
car insurances, car
manufacturers, etc.)
• Ethical concerns in the
decision making of self-
driving cars, e.g.
possibility of
interference with the
decision making
• Freedom of choice
stalled by the system
(e.g. it may not allow to
drive into a certain
area)
• Values and priorities:
Ensure that general
public values will be
embodied in the
technology, with
interests of minorities
taken into account
• Determination and
declaration of minimal
necessary security
requirements, that
work as a threshold for
deployment of self-
driving cars
• Security in systems and
connections
• Distribution of software
updates
• Storing and using
received and generated
data in a secure way
Recommendations
 Make strategic
solutions for people
losing jobs
 Learn from historic
parallels to
industrialization and
automatization
• Identify and
communicate the
amount of control a
human has in context of
the self-driving car
• The freedom of choice
determined by
regulations
• Active involvement of
stakeholders in the
process of design and
requirements
specification
• Provide technical
solutions that will
guarantee minimum
security under all
foreseeable
circumstances
• Forestall and prevent
worst case scenarios
regarding security
breaches
• Nonstop learning
process must be in
place to provide active
security
• Reassure accessibility of
the data even in the
case of accidents so

Reliability • Reliability of required
networks and solution
for the case when the
network is unavailable
• Reliability of sensors,
and need for
redundancy
that it could be
analyzed and lessons
learned.
• Define different levels
for reliability
(diagnostics, vehicle
input sensors, external
services)
• Determine reliability for
components and the
overall car

Conclusion
Computer programs will not do the stupid mistakes of sending text messages while driving, breaking speed
limit etc.

My opinion is that, overall, self-driving cars will be good for society for example blind people, disabled
people, people unable to drive in any way will be more independent. However, there is a downside of
mass unemployment. Currently, the economies of the industrialized world, and probably the entire world
for that matter, are built on rising consumption. Self-driving cars are going to put many if not most truck
drivers, taxi drivers, bus drivers, couriers, train drivers, tour guides, postmen, etc. out of business. A new
model of wealth distribution will need to be planned to handle the newly unemployed and broadly
unemployable people. Self-driving cars are just the first step in mechanical minds replacing humans in a
really meaningful way. Whether this will usher in a new gilded age or some kind of utopia will be up to us.

References
Forrest and Konca (2007). Autonomous Cars and Society. [online] Available at:
https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-043007-
205701/unrestricted/IQPOVP06B1.pdf [Accessed 8 Aug. 2018].

Holstein, T., Dodig-Crnkovic, G. and Pelliccione, P. (2018). Ethical and Social Aspects of Self-Driving Cars.
[online] Arxiv.org. Available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04103 [Accessed 8 Aug. 2018].

Hörl, Ciari and Axhausen (2016). Recent perspectives on the impact of autonomous vehicles. [online]
Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sebastian_Hoerl/publication/317286130_Recent_perspectiv
es_on_the_impact_of_autonomous_vehicles/links/59303cda45851553b67f03a7/Recent-
perspectives-on-the-impact-of-autonomous-vehicles.pdf?origin=publication_detail [Accessed 8
Aug. 2018].