[kictanet] In self-driving technology, who will bear legal responsibility?

[Brian Muhia]

This has been a really thorny question in 'developed' countries, e.g. the
USA, even before deep learning, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. People
tend to trust automated reasoning, even if it has inscrutable, or sometimes
obvious biases. Status-quo bias then prevents people from changing their
policies. An example is the incarceration rates of African-Americans, where
some jurisdictions use mathematical models to predict recidivism rates for
first-time offenders. Seems like a good idea, until one reads that one of
the key metrics of this model is a suspect's relationship with someone
who's already been incarcerated. People have been given longer sentences
because they were related to someone who was already in prison. Therefore,
almost twice as many black people in the USA are incarcerated. A lot of
these administrators think that they're ushering in a more efficient
future, and have abdicated their ethical responsibilities.

I think this is the part that's problematic.

Humans have ethical responsibilities to one another that they somehow
suspend when they start uncritically trusting models built on assumptions
that they don't have an incentive to question. Mathematical models don't,
and can't (yet) encode these responsibilities because they're a very
long-term negotiation, fundamental to the history and fabric of our various
societies. Here's a deeper discussion of this problem, from the Future of
Life Institute:
https://futureoflife.org/2017/07/31/towards-a-code-of-ethics-in-artificial-intelligence/

On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 4:23 PM anyega jefferson via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

>
> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/08/inside-waymos-secret-testing-and-simulation-facilities/537648/?utm_source=atltw
> Interesting article on efforts to build mobility as a service.
>
>
> The rise of self-driving cars and other applications of machine learning
> such as the use of robotics in surgeries, who bears legal responsibility
> when a mishap happens? The software developer or the manufacturer?
>
>
>
> --
> Anyega M Jefferson
>
> jeffersonanyega at gmail.com
>
> 0703824326
>
> Start where you are,use what you have and do what you can.
>
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-- 
Software Engineer - Savannah Informatics Ltd.
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