IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 67

Ethical Responsibilities
of Design Engineers

Self-Driving
Cars
ISTOCK

Jason Borenstein, Joseph Herkert, and Keith Miller

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
-Yogi Berra [1]

I

n the wake of the exposure of Volkswagen's
diesel engine test-rigging, a Bloomberg Business journalist described the company as
"driven by engineering-crazed executives" [2]
and The New York Times ran a story noting
how with today's complex computer systems
in automobiles, there are numerous opportunities for misdeeds both by automakers and hackers [3].

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2017.2696600
Date of publication: 8 June 2017

june 2017

∕

With the advent of so-called autonomous or self-driving
cars, such issues may become even more pervasive and
problematic. From a legal perspective, a key focal point
is who would be at fault if and when an accident occurs
[4]. Much also has been written about the ethical complexities posed by self-driving cars [5]-[6]. In accordance with Moore's Law, "[a]s technological revolutions
increase their social impact, ethical problems increase"
[7]. Yet relatively little has been said about the ethical
responsibilities of the designers of self-driving cars.
In this paper, we review Richard De George's classic
article on the moral responsibilities of engineers in the
infamous Pinto case, and consider whether his analysis is
valid in an era of pervasive and autonomous technologies [8]. We undertake a contemporary analysis of the
topic as it pertains to engineers who are designers

IEEE TEchnology and SocIETy MagazInE

1932-4529/17©2017IEEE

67



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