TY - JOUR

T1 - Three Types of Structural Discrimination Introduced by Autonomous Vehicles

AU - Liu, Hin-Yan

PY - 2018/5

Y1 - 2018/5

N2 - The advent of autonomous vehicles has been hailed by commentators asintroducing an improvement for traffic safety by promising to reduce theoverall number of road accidents as the technology matures. Someadvocates even hint at a moral imperative to structure incentives andsmooth over barriers in order to induce widespread usage of autonomousvehicle in order to actualize this potential. The orientation towards safetyconcerns, however, foregrounds the debate on crash-optimization andimports the trolley-problem thought-experiments to the question ofautonomous vehicles. This paper examines the potential for three types of structuraldiscrimination to be woven into the fabric of these developments. First,given the emphasis placed upon decisional agency by trolley-problemscenarios, there will be systematic privileging of the occupant vis-à-vispedestrians and other third-parties. Second, there is the prospect forstructural discrimination arising from the coordinated modes ofautonomous vehicle behavior that is prescribed by its code, or which isconverged upon through learning algorithms operating towards similargoals and within similar constraints. This leads to the potential forhitherto individuated outcomes to be networked and thereby multipliedacross fleets of vehicles. The aggregated effects of such algorithmic policypreferences will thus cumulate in the reallocation of benefits and burdensto certain categories of persons in a relatively stable manner. This in turnraises the spectre of a more pernicious form of active structuraldiscrimination where the possibility of crash-optimization casts aprotective shield over certain individuals at the cost of third-parties.Third, the introduction of autonomous vehicles within the framework ofcrash-optimization will likely precipitate infrastructural changes, whichin a literal sense, will introduce or exacerbate structural forms ofdiscrimination with regard to human access to public space.

AB - The advent of autonomous vehicles has been hailed by commentators asintroducing an improvement for traffic safety by promising to reduce theoverall number of road accidents as the technology matures. Someadvocates even hint at a moral imperative to structure incentives andsmooth over barriers in order to induce widespread usage of autonomousvehicle in order to actualize this potential. The orientation towards safetyconcerns, however, foregrounds the debate on crash-optimization andimports the trolley-problem thought-experiments to the question ofautonomous vehicles. This paper examines the potential for three types of structuraldiscrimination to be woven into the fabric of these developments. First,given the emphasis placed upon decisional agency by trolley-problemscenarios, there will be systematic privileging of the occupant vis-à-vispedestrians and other third-parties. Second, there is the prospect forstructural discrimination arising from the coordinated modes ofautonomous vehicle behavior that is prescribed by its code, or which isconverged upon through learning algorithms operating towards similargoals and within similar constraints. This leads to the potential forhitherto individuated outcomes to be networked and thereby multipliedacross fleets of vehicles. The aggregated effects of such algorithmic policypreferences will thus cumulate in the reallocation of benefits and burdensto certain categories of persons in a relatively stable manner. This in turnraises the spectre of a more pernicious form of active structuraldiscrimination where the possibility of crash-optimization casts aprotective shield over certain individuals at the cost of third-parties.Third, the introduction of autonomous vehicles within the framework ofcrash-optimization will likely precipitate infrastructural changes, whichin a literal sense, will introduce or exacerbate structural forms ofdiscrimination with regard to human access to public space.

UR - https://lawreview.law.ucdavis.edu/online/vol51/51-online-Liu.pdf

M3 - Journal article

VL - 51

SP - 149

EP - 180

JO - UC Davis Law Review Online

JF - UC Davis Law Review Online

IS - MAY 2018

ER -