Live from Cubberley Auditorium at Stanford University, Ken and Laura Maguire, Philosophy Talk director of research, discuss a familiar topic: bad drivers. Between drinking, texting, and standard human error, driving is one of the most dangerous responsibilities that humans are entrusted with every day. But could the dawn of driverless cars controlled by computer algorithms change everything? Sure, computers may be safer drivers than humans on average, but can they care about human life the same way that people can?

Harvard psychology professor Joshua Greene joins Ken and Laura to discuss the moral dilemmas that come with the advent of driverless cars. Josh admits that it is difficult for people to accept handing their capacity for decision-making over to a computer but explains that computerized driving will ultimately lead to a much safer world. Still, there is justified caution about “mechanized morality” – can we trust computers to make morally fraught decisions? Josh explains that from the perspective of neuroscience, moral decisions are just like any others, meaning that they can be programmed into computer algorithms as easily as commanding the computer to turn left or right.

In the last segment, Ken, Laura, and Josh take questions from the audience about difficulties with morality that is mechanized. A lawyer points out that moral questions already have to be quantified every day in various realms from insurance to product design. A student points out that self-driving cars could be biased towards their own passengers, leading to an incongruence between passengers of different socioeconomic class. Other audience members focus on particular issues with autonomous cars, but Josh stresses that regardless of nitpicked exceptions, any sort of driverless technology will require some sort of quantified, programmed moral system. The challenge is simply deciding how that system should be set up.