The year is 2026. Virtual reality video game consoles have replaced the Xbox and PlayStation. There is now a cure for cancer and diabetes. The screen is no longer a thing, and global warming has caused the average summer temperature to be 110 degrees Fahrenheit. For some time now, self-driving cars have been the standard mode of transportation, and manually driven cars are now considered antiques.

Over the past decade, many companies, such as Google, Mercedes, and BMW, have been working to develop self-driving cars. They still have a long way to go until their cars are capable of fully autonomous driving, and many auto companies have already incorporated self-driving features into their current vehicle models. A handful of car manufacturers' vehicles can park themselves and even stop themselves to avoid an accident. Google has been testing their self-driving cars on the road, and they have gathered a lot of data to see how they can improve them. The data shows that when the autonomous cars were involved in an accident, human drivers were the ones at fault, and engineers have only needed to assume control of them due to system failures (Davies, 2). These types of problems are very easy to fix, so Google does not find it very troubling. At the current rate of development and improvement of autonomous cars, they will be expected to debut in the United States in 2020 (Greenough, 1).

Self-driving cars offer many benefits that normal, manually driven cars do not. As we all know, humans are not perfect. Humans can get "bored, sleepy, drunk, or angry" behind the wheel of a car (McCabe, 1). According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 32,675 people were killed, and approximately 2.3 million sustained injuries from car crashes in 2014. Car accidents are the eighth most common cause of death in America, which is frightening, considering how necessary driving is for people to complete standard tasks, such as getting to work, dropping their kids off at school, etc. (Jagger, 3). The concept of a self-driving car aims to make driving safer and reduce the amount of accident-related injuries and deaths on the road.

Though self-driving cars offer a solution to the current dangers of driving, they bring up a very controversial issue of ethics and morality. Imagine you are in your autonomous car, humming down a local street. A large freighter truck is on the same road, driving towards you. It is about to pass you when all of the sudden, the truck swerves into your lane. The collision will probably kill you, but there is one way to avoid it. Your car could swerve to the right onto the sidewalk and keep you completely safe from any physical harm. However, there is a group of three people on the sidewalk just to your right, and if you swerve onto it, the car will kill all of them. What should the car do? It could save you and sacrifice the three pedestrians, or it could stay in its lane and hit the truck, killing you while keeping the pedestrians alive. Though this would be a new issue humans have to deal with, we have actually been thinking about it for a long time. In 1978 philosopher Phillippa Foot came up with the "trolley problem" where someone has to choose between two choices that will both result in a tragedy. The scenario has a trolley chugging down its track, and a group of people is standing on the track a short distance away. They are oblivious to the approaching trolley and will inevitably die if it hits them. An observer notices the danger the group is in, and he can pull a lever on the track that will alter the trolley's course and avoid the group of people. However, there is also another oblivious person on the track, and if the observer decides to pull the lever, the trolley will kill that person (Journal of Business Ethics). This issue of ethics is now about to come to life with the introduction of self-driving cars, and we need to determine which choice is the right choice in an event that results in inevitable death.

Self-driving cars are a lot safer than manually driven cars, but it is impossible for them to always be able to avoid an accident. Unavoidable collisions where the car has to choose between whom to kill and who to save, similar to the example in the paragraph above, are bound to happen. This is a very significant issue of ethics because a machine has the power to decide who lives and who does not. Though one may believe that self-driving cars top priority should be the passenger's safety, I believe there should be strict laws that require companies to program their vehicles to minimize the amount of deaths or injuries in the event of an unavoidable accident, even if it means sacrificing the passenger(s).

To begin, if an autonomous vehicle is programmed to be utilitarian, more people will be comfortable with them because they know the cars will injure or kill the least amount of people possible. It is very important for people to have an open attitude towards self-driving cars because then more people will purchase them, making the roads safer. As I mentioned before, computerized vehicles are much safer drivers than human drivers because humans can easily make a mistake behind the wheel that can lead to an accident. If there are less human drivers on the roads and more dependable, autonomous cars, driving will be much safer because human error will have less of a presence on the roads. It is very important for self-driving cars to be utilitarian because more people will accept them, which would result in more of them being on the roads, making driving safer.

Not only will self-driving cars that are programmed to minimize the number of deaths in an unavoidable accident make the roads less dangerous, but they will also advance society's morality. Over the past few centuries, human society has come a long way. We abolished slavery, gave equal rights to women, and are much more accepting of different groups of people. Now you may ask yourself, what do self-driving cars have anything to do with this? These vehicles actually have a lot of potential to influence human ethics. 

Philosopher Ian M. Church claims, "the advancement of morality seems to have ... a symbiotic relationship with the advancement of science" and technology (Church, 506). In other words, they are both interdependent upon each other. The self-driving car is a critical advancement in the realm of science and technology, and this will cause human ethics to further advance as well. However, I believe human ethics will progress if and only if autonomous cars are programmed to be utilitarian. If computerized cars are programmed to be utilitarian, humans will become used to the idea of saving the most lives in an unavoidable collision, even if that means sacrificing their own lives. Right now most people have an self-centered view of the world, valuing their own lives more than anyone else's. We make choices out of self-interest rather than for the greater good of the community. Once self-driving cars take away humans' ability to choose whom to save and who to crash into in an unavoidable accident, humans will have a less individualistic way of thinking, which will benefit society as a whole.

In order to ensure society experiences all the benefits of self-driving cars, the government needs to strictly enforce the way they are ethically programmed. First, the federal government should require all self-driving car manufacturers to program their cars to be utilitarian. This should be a federal law and not a state law, so state governments will not be able to allow the manufacturers to program their cars to protect their passengers at all costs, which will be detrimental to society's morality. Furthermore, the federal government needs to make laws that prohibit people from tinkering with the cars' programming. This is an issue we have all seen before with the iPhone. Numerous people have "jail broke" their iPhone, altering its operating system to give the user more control over it. It has also allowed the users to bypass Apple's restrictions and download apps and other content not from the official Apple site. This is illegal, and laws such as the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the EUCD prohibit people from removing digital locks and teaching people how to do so. Undoubtedly, people will try to alter the programming of their self-driving cars so that they would never intentionally murder them in certain circumstances (Doctorow). "Jail breaking" a self-driving car should definitely be against the law. Not only should it be against the law, it should be a felony. Committing a felony has harsh punishments, such as time in federal prison, which will be a very unappealing disincentive for those trying to hack their autonomous vehicle. It is very important that the federal government strictly regulates the programming of self-driving cars, so everyone will be able to reap the benefits they offer and prohibit anyone from altering their car out of self-interest. Though autonomous vehicles should be programmed to be utilitarian, some people think that they should save the passengers at all costs in an unavoidable accident. These people think that if self-driving cars are utilitarian, people will not buy them, knowing their car might decide to kill them. If not a lot of people buy them, the roads will not be safe because manually driven cars are much more likely to be involved in an accident (MIT Technology Review). This makes sense because more self-driving cars on the road will make the roads safer. Though this reasoning is logically sound, it is immoral and unethical. Taking the passenger(s) of a self-driving car out of danger and placing it upon innocent bystanders or pedestrians is inhumane. If these driverless vehicles are programmed to protect the passenger(s) and sacrifice others, innocents will be put in danger and society's moral values will digress, rather than move forward.

To ensure that self-driving cars are programmed to be ethically utilitarian, I encourage all of you to just take some time and think about it. The future is slowly creeping up on us, and soon many unbelievable technological inventions will become a part of our everyday lives. Think of the cell phone. Thirty years ago, no one ever expected a portable, handheld cellular device to soon become a reality, and nowadays people cannot imagine going anywhere without their cellphone. I believe the driverless car will eventually become a huge part of our lives, similar to the cell phone, and it is important to start thinking about how it will affect our lives. Imagine you are the pedestrian on a sidewalk, and a robotic car that is trying to avoid an accident with another vehicle hits you. You had nothing to do with the cause of the accident, so why should you have to suffer its consequences? Not only would the robot car hitting you be unethical and immoral, it would simply be unfair. I also encourage you to think about how the benefits of a utilitarian self-driving car will positively affect your lives. These autonomous vehicles will be so much safer than normal, human driven cars. Within the next couple decades a lot of us will be parents, and our children's safety will be our top priority. My parents worry a lot about my safety when it comes to transportation. Guys my age are known for making mistakes behind the wheel. They may drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol or drive faster than the speed limit, which compromises their safety. Once self-driving cars are introduced, parents will no longer have to worry about their children's safety behind the wheel. In addition, self-driving cars allow easily accessible transportation to those who have difficulty driving or cannot drive. My grandparents have recently been finding driving a lot more difficult than it used to be. My grandpa is having a lot of trouble walking, so he finds it impossible to drive. My grandma's eyesight and reflexes are progressively getting worse, so driving long distances, such as to my house, is challenging for her. I wish self-driving cars were already integrated into the current world so it would be a lot easier for me to see my grandparents. Soon driving will become difficult for our parents, but I will still want to see them as much as possible. Luckily, self-driving cars will exist by then, allowing them to visit whenever they want, despite their difficulties with driving. Driverless vehicles will soon be a huge part of our lives, and I believe it is important for us to think about them and all they will offer. 

We also all need to show support for the utilitarian programming of self-driving cars. In the future when these robotic vehicles are introduced, we need to have already determined how they are ethically programmed (Wallach and Allen). At the moment, the "amount of money being spent on machine morality is tiny" (Marcus). We should encourage autonomous car manufacturers to focus more on their cars' morality, and we should advocate for the utilitarian programming of these vehicles to ensure safe driving and the advancement of human morals. Clearly, it is in society's best interest for self-driving cars to minimize the death toll in an unavoidable accident, even if it means sacrificing the passenger(s), because it will ultimately make driving less of a danger, and it will allow better, more advanced morals to permeate among society. 

