(Bloomberg) – The great-grandson of Henry Ford called on the auto industry and public institutions to address ethical issues emerging in a world where robot cars will make life-and-death decisions in roadway crashes — and to do it soon.
"These cars will have the ability to process data and make decisions much faster than we will as humans," said Bill Ford, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., which has promised to have robot taxis on the road by 2021. "No individual company is going to program these vehicles with a set of ethics that isn't bought into by society at large."
Need for disussion is urgent
The discussion to set robot-car ethics must include the auto industry, government, universities and ethicists, said Ford, who commented to reporters Tuesday after a speech at the company's headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. With self-driving cars set to hit the road over the next five years, the need for this discussion is urgent, he said.
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