From driverless dilemmas to more practical commonsense tests for automated vehicles

Area of Science:

• Engineering
• Computer Science
• Ethics

Background:

• Automated vehicles (AVs) are increasingly deployed in public spaces.
• Ensuring ethically acceptable behavior in AVs is a critical challenge.
• Current ethical frameworks for AVs, like trolley dilemmas, have limited practical application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel framework for testing the ethical driving common sense of AVs.
• To bridge the gap between philosophical ethics discussions and practical AV development.
• To integrate common sense testing into AV road rules evaluation.

Main Methods:

• Reviewing existing
• driverless dilemmas
• and their limitations.
• Adapting philosophical dilemmas to create a practical testing framework.
• Focusing on behavioral diagnostics relevant to real-world driving scenarios.

Main Results:

• Identified limitations of current ethical dilemma frameworks for AVs.
• Proposed modifications to dilemmas to enhance practical relevance.
• Laid foundations for a new framework to test AV driving common sense.

Conclusions:

• AVs lack human-like common sense and require explicit testing.
• A practical framework for testing AV driving common sense is essential.
• Integrating common sense testing into road rules evaluation is a key next step.