Robot accidental mumbo -jumbo

 

Autonomous responsibility

1) It’s 2041 but you no longer have your own car.

2) You decide to visit a town 40 miles away but there is no regular bus or train. Therefore, you decide to hire an autonomous self-driving car from the local depot.

3) You log onto to the internet and book a car for the day after receiving the 30-page contract.

4) The autonomous car is despatched to your house without a driver.

5) In the meantime, your neighbours are too busy to take their 5-year-old son, Johnny, to school themselves so they instruct their robot servant to do it.

6) Johnny and the robot are on their way to school whilst the self-driving car turns the corner into your street.

7) As your car is driving past Johnny and the robot, your neighbour’s son suddenly breaks free of the robotic-servant’s grip and dashes across the road to greet a friend.

8) The autonomous car has slowed down to 10 mph after “seeing” the robot and Johnny, but its brakes are not good enough to prevent Johnny from being knocked over and being sent to hospital with a broken pelvis, and broken arms and legs.

9) A robot policeman arrives but there are no adult human witnesses to what happened, but both the robot and the autonomous vehicle have recorded everything with all the details of speed, capability of the car and road conditions and how tightly the robot was gripping Johnny etc.

10) Johnny’s parents demand compensation and a jail sentence for those who are responsible.

11) The case ends up in an autonomous court. The same “AI” system acts for you, the parents and the autonomous vehicle company, and the same autonomous judicial system makes the final judgement.

11)Who or what is responsible for the accident, who pays the fine and who or what is sent to jail for 3 months?

Remember that you ticked the conditions box on the car hire agreement without reading the 30-page text.