Prof. Iris Eisenberger was invited to give a special lecture at the University of Macau on September 20, 2016. In her lecture, Prof. Eisenberger addressed ethical issues in terms of different levels of decision-making regarding autonomous cars, whether these relate to the programming of algorithms or to the legislative process.

At the invitation of Prof. Rostam J. Neuwirth of the Faculty of Law, Prof. Iris Eisenberger, Head of the Institute of Law at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, recently delivered a lecture entitled “Ethical Coding and Autonomous Cars” to students on the International Business Law (IBL) Master’s programme, PhD students, and interested staff of the Faculty of Law at the University of Macau.

Two recent fatalities, one in the United States and one in China, have drawn worldwide attention to issues in various fields surrounding autonomous or self-driving cars, and have provoked legal debate. The reason is that autonomous cars have to be programmed carefully so that they can make proper ethical decisions when faced with the possibility of fatal accidents to human beings. In her lecture, Prof. Eisenberger presented a great variety of unanswered ethical and legal questions that arise, in particular, from the coding algorithm for autonomous cars. Prof. Eisenberger illustrated this specific problem by reference to the so-called “trolley problem”, which is often discussed in ethics and moral philosophy. This describes a dilemma faced by a person whose decision on whether or not to act influences the number of casualties.

When applied to autonomous cars, Prof. Eisenberger outlined that the principal question is how such cars ought to be programmed to deal with a seemingly inevitable collision that will cause one or more fatal casualties. Apart from the technical issues that are yet to be solved, and in addition to the ethical problems, another important question stressed in the lecture related to the decision-making in the legislative process. Who are the major stakeholders or, more precisely, who is going to be involved in the formulation of the laws and regulations that stipulate how autonomous cars should be programmed? Should the legislative process involve society at large, for instance, or just representatives of the population? Should the decision-makers be part of the industry, or a group of programmers or maybe a consumer group? Or should decisions be taken on a higher level involving the government, for example, or the legislature or even an international organization?

With the help of a large number of different scenarios related to this problem, several possible regulatory approaches were presented to the participants and were critically evaluated in the subsequent question and answer session, which created a vivid debate.

In sum, the opinions voiced during the discussion varied greatly. This highlighted, first and foremost, the general level of complexity of regulatory processes today. Additionally, it underscored the great importance of an early debate in parallel with the serious challenges deriving from the rapid evolution of a large number of legal problems involving emerging technologies. The proper use and legal regulation of autonomous cars on our roads poses such a challenge, and requires further discussion on possible solutions.


14.09.2016