[Avodah] driverless cars in Halacha?

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, May 21, 2019 at 09:27:11PM +0000, Rich, Joel via Avodah wrote:
: I've heard Ravi Asher Weiss make the point concerning the programmers
: prioritizing driverless cars' decisions from the point of the driver...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the idiom is currently used, generally
refers to Neural Nets (NN). One doesn't program a NN, one trains it.

You set a list of hundred of parameters to random values. (These
parameters are the weights given to each input of an idealized "neuron";
each neuron produces a result which is then passed on either to other
neurons as their inputs, or as output.)

Give it sample input. If it gets the right answer, tweak those parameters
one way; if it gets the wrong answer, tweak them another.

Over time, the number of wrong answers diminishes. (Only your model is
broken, and then you rethink what your inputs should be, or maybe which
choice of mathemtical idealization of a "neuron" you chose, or how you
layered their interconnections, or...)

Notice you don't give a NN rules.

Worse, there is no way to pick out of NN to figure out after the fact what
it did.

So, what you're saying is that whomever is training the neural net will
treat risk to the driver as more wrong than other people's death or injury.

If it requires a LOT of data, it's going to be based on movies of people
with good driving records actually driving, and not articulated moral
standards at all.

Now what?

:                    In addition I'm not sure whether Halacha or secular
: law will view the programmer as an agent of society rather than as an
: agent of the eventual buyer. Thoughts?

As R Aqiva said about not sharing your canteen in the desert -- chayekha
qodmin. Nothing about shelichus. And unless the programmer is one of
the people crossing the street in front of the car, I don't see applicability.

Rather, I would frame it  in terms of purchasing decision: It is appropriate
for a buyer to choose a car that places more value on his own life.

So, if there were any way to know what values were encoded into your
car's neural net, halakhah may tell you to get the one that prioritizes
the driver.

Also find a manufacturer that doesn't rank animals when the alternative
is human life.

And since halakhah is more about following the rules and leaving the
conseqences to Hashem, not one that chooses swerving out of a lane with
2 people in it in order to hit only one. Halakhah would seem to tell
you not to go near the switch in a Trolley Car Problem situation. And
therefore that's what you should choose to buy.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Today is the 39th day, which is
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   5 weeks and 4 days in/toward the omer.
Author: Widen Your Tent      Netzach sheb'Yesod: What is imposing about a
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                        reliable person?