The Cost of Progress Autonomy and Safety in the Age of Automation
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The Cost of Progress Autonomy and safety in the age of automation Master Thesis Philosophy University of Amsterdam Student: Tove Oegema Student nr.: 10209964 Supervisor: Gijs van Donselaar Second reader: Thomas Nys Words: 17044 Pages: 38 August, 2017 Table of content Introduction 1. 1: Framework and concept definitions 2. 1.1: Governments and influence 2. 1.2: Case study: self-driving cars 4. 2: Moral Philosophy 6. 2.1: Utilitarianism (Mill) 7. 2.2: Deontology (Kant) 8. 2.3: Paternalism and the moral status of technological artifacts 10. 2.4: Our liberal and technological legacy 11. 2.5: Application to case-study 12. 3: Society, culture and the individual 13. 3.1: Psychology: fear and phobias 13. 3.2: Culture and evolution 14. 3.2.1: Luddites, labor and loss of identity 16. 3.2.2: Economy and automation 17. 3.2.3: Evolutionary biology and paternalism 18. 3.2.4: Self-driving cars and popular culture 19. 3.2.5: The opposition 22. 3.3: Equality and technology 25. 3.4: Control and dependency 26. 4: The transition 28. 4.1: Government policy 28. 4.2: Embracing the age of automation 30. Literature 32. Preface During the writing of this paper, there was a quickly expanding body of literature, audiovisual material and speeches devoted to figuring out how to deal with the introduction of the self- driving car. Talk shows, especially in the United States of America, started mentioning the self- driving car and various news and documentary pieces were devoted to hosts or guests sitting in a self-driving car and describing their experience. The first articles and news stories (especially in the first two years) describing or showing the progress of the self-driving car had a certain joy and wonder to them. Whenever a video or article of Google’s self-driving car was published, the tone of the articles and videos were always optimistic and were full of enthusiasm. It wasn’t until after the initial excitement subsided that the critical questions and evaluations came into existence. People started wondering what the actual consequences would be. No longer was the self-driving car science fiction made into reality. It was now clear that the self-driving car was going to part of society in the near future. It was at this turning point that I delved deeper into the literature and various technology forums. To my surprise, there was quite a lot of opposition from a variety of people from different sectors of society. Not only car-enthusiasts or people who fear technology in general were voicing opposition, but also the taxi industry, truck drivers, users of Uber and many others. I also found my way to the literature that does not care much (generally) for the introduction of advanced or autonomous technologies. Usually, this remains in the area of technophobia and is primarily based and fueled by science fiction movies who portray autonomous technology as an extreme danger to mankind. However, some of these fears did touch upon a crucial aspect of the human existence, namely that people like to be in control. The fear of losing control and handing over the reins to technology leaves people with a certain anxiety. While understandable, I wondered if this anxiety could be made into a sufficient argument for stopping or delaying certain technologies. It is at this point that I started bringing up these issues while talking with my master thesis supervisor, Gijs van Donselaar. Through our conversations and discussions, it became clear that there is great potential in writing a master thesis about the self-driving car and the subsequent issues that may arise from the introduction of it. After numerous conversations, it became clear that this problem touches upon the classical debate between utilitarianism and deontology. When I first started researching and writing the first chapters, it became clear that the problems that arise from the self-driving car must be addressed within a broader context. The possible opposition and other problems that might arise from the introduction of the self-driving car, were all over society and thus the thesis could not just be limited to the mentioned classical debate. This broader perspective made it possible to include arguments that are not in the classical debate and allowed for arguments that have an economic, sociological or anthropological aspect to them. It remained important however, to always remember the philosophical aspect of the core question: is this argument sufficient enough to stop or delay the introduction of the self-driving car? This approach allowed me to use the knowledge that I had accumulated during my time as a student within the University of Amsterdam. During these five years, I took classes in anthropology, sociology, psychology and the philosophy of technology. This put me in a position to evaluate the arguments from different disciplines. On top of that, it made this master thesis the perfect conclusion to my studies. However, it must be stated that the research and writing were not always easy. The first obstacle was applying the arguments from the classical debate between utilitarianism and deontology to the discussion about the introduction of the self-driving car. The reason for this was that society has changed quite a bit since the writings of Kant and Mill and the dependency on technology has increased dramatically. With this change, the notion pf paternalism has received a new or different meaning. No longer is it simply from person to person or from institution to person, but paternalism now includes almost every aspect of everyday life, since we are constantly steered in particular directions by technology. It was this difficulty in the early days of researching this master thesis, that doubt about the viability of the subject matter arose. Thankfully, my supervisor managed to provide structure in the research process and somehow managed to cope with my occasional chaotic (verbal) argumentation. I sincerely think this master thesis would not have been so complete without the consistent support of my supervisor Gijs van Donselaar. I sincerely want to thank him for his persistence, motivation and the absolutely wonderful examples. All of these examples have made their way into this thesis and I believe they have greatly livened up this paper. May the reader find valuable insights and be made ready for the implementation of the self- driving car! Tove Oegema Amsterdam, August 25, 2017. Introduction “You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem.” - Edward’s Law The human race is entering a new technological age. Technologies that were previously only conceived in the minds of science-fiction writers are now closer to coming into existence than ever before. Self-driving cars, self-repairing circuits in computer chips, the creating of artificial life and even body enhancement through the use of nanotechnology are just some examples. These technological developments has led some scholars to describe a phenomenon called ‘sub- politicization of society’, whereby important decisions that could have an effect on entire societies are no longer instituted via the traditional political institutions (such as a parliament or government agencies) but by researchers and developers of new technologies (De Vries, 2007). The introduction of these new technologies presents us with problems, often in retrospect. The still on-going privacy debate that followed from the introduction of the internet or the current debate over the mobile phone application that allows citizens to become their own taxi-drivers (‘Uber’) and the concurrent consequences for established taxi businesses are just two examples. With most of the cases of new technologies, new laws or changes to laws have to be made afterwards. It seems that in the context of the introduction of new technologies, our laws are always one step behind. This observation might lead to the conclusion that laws will always be outdated and have to be constantly revised in the face of technological changes in society. One might even argue that these laws are in the way of quickly introducing new technologies which could lead to a better society. This paper will address these issues from a more positive point of view and eventually argue for proactive action from both governments and civil organizations (including businesses and entrepreneurs). The aim of the paper is to explain and evaluate the possible implications of autonomy reducing technologies for moral theory. The primary focus will be on technologies that promise an increase in physical well-being at the cost of a specific liberty. The question that will be addressed from different points of view in this paper is if a decrease or potential elimination of traffic accidents justifies the decrease in autonomy, a change in culture or other objections to the introduction of a new technology with potentially wide implications for the way we organize society. Using a case-study of self-driving cars, the paper will discuss the possible ethical or moral implications of the introduction of such technologies. These implications will first be discussed from the point of view of two dominant ethical theories or approaches, namely utilitarianism and the deontological point of view. Apart from this classical debate however, this paper will also address a wide variety of arguments that can potentially be used against the introduction of this technology. After a careful weighting of the various arguments, it will eventually be concluded that in the context of maximizing physical safety or well-being in the public sphere, the potential loss of liberty and potential changes in culture are justifiable. 1 1: Framework and concept definitions In the following pages, an imagined or hypothetical scenario is taken as a point of view.