the driverless vehicle revolution stalled

They always cross on pedestrian crossings and stop to give way to their human comrades. On a university campus in Los Angeles (United States), students are no longer even surprised to come across these Kiwibots, as they are now part of the daily landscape. It’s been a few years since these little delivery robots were developed, but they are taking off today thanks to a partial failure and a disappointment: the autonomous car.

Because the driverless vehicle is long overdue. Since the 1950s, the future promised self-driving cars. The manufacturer General Motors had even announced it for 1970. But 50 years later, despite considerable progress, in particular by Tesla, the car that drives alone and in all circumstances still does not populate our cities and our roads. Engineers come up against an ethical problem, not a technical one. Anticipating an accident, what should the artificial intelligence of the car decide? And ultimately, who should she sacrifice? In recent years, the prestigious research institute MIT, in Boston, has conducted a major survey to sound out public opinion and ask them questions that are as impossible as they are disturbing. If a human driver has a reflex and makes choices, including with errors, a robot will have to be programmed to decide.