Team Alpha
Ethics
Welcome to the discussion on the ethics and sustainability of autonomous vehicles
The Ethics of Autonomous Vehicles
The task expected from us here at Team Alpha is to build a Micro mouse (Autonomous Vehicle) which will be able to avoid obstacles and follow a white line. While working on our vehicle, we ensured that we would abide by the ethics and take into consideration the different ethical issues. I believe that the most important thing an engineer must take into consideration is the importance of ethics; this is because it keeps an engineer accountable for their actions (1).
However, to have a better understanding of this topic, we must look at a live example of an autonomous vehicle, which has crashed or collided with something or someone. Although there have been very few autonomous vehicle fatalities, there was one such case which was striking because the vehicle's actions had resulted in the death of a person.
Elaine Herzberg was killed when an Uber-owned self-driving car, which was operating in autonomous mode-, struck her as she crossed a road in Tempe, Arizona (2). Following this accident, many questions can arise from the point of an ethical point of view. For example, when looking at the responsibility, we could say multiple people could be blamed. Starting with Ms Herzberg as it was stated that she was acting unsafely in attempting to cross the road as she was under the influence of drugs; Uber too could be blamed because of their technicality problems, which relates to their coding for the autonomous vehicle, and lastly the person behind the wheel. It was stated that the driver had spent 36% of the journey that evening looking at her mobile device.
Personally, if I were posed with the same question, I would say that the fault lies with the person behind, as it was their responsibility always to keep an eye on the road. Furthermore, this accident falls under the Level 3 autonomous driving system, which means that it would occasionally expect a driver to take over control (3). Thus, it is evident that autonomous vehicles must thoroughly be assessed before production and must abide by ethics. Furthermore, it is also clear that these vehicles have a long way to go in terms of gaining trust from the people, thus revolutionising global transportation.
After taking into consideration the code of ethics that is demanded from an engineer we at Team Alpha have designed our micro mouse in such a way that it minimises harm, this was done firstly by keeping the speed within bounds, and lastly by fixing a protective exterior. The micro mouse has quite a few sharp edges, which could tamper with the surroundings. Although this is a plus point for us when it comes to the combat, we at team alpha believe that it is not ethically right to intentionally harm someone or something; thus the protective exterior was fixed.
Sustainability
As stated in the Cambridge dictionary sustainability means "the quality of causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore, able to continue for a long time" (4). It is of utmost importance for engineers to consider sustainability in their work, especially now because of the fact that our planet is being ruined by climate change. Furthermore, as of the present, we are running out of places to dump waste. It is stated that "the amount of worldwide e-waste generation is expected to exceed 50 million tons by 2020" (5). Hence, it is a high priority for us, engineers, to use the required amount of components and work with less hazardous materials, thus reducing the carbon footprint.
While working with our Micro mouse, the majority of components which we worked with were cooperative with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS). The excess wiring which was used for our work was recycled; this was done with the help of the university's recycling stations which were placed at different areas of the lab.
Reference List:
(1) Joshi, P. (2016). The Importance of Ethics in the Engineering Sector. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/@PrabhatJoshi/the-importance-of-ethics-in-the-engineering-sector-cba24b1eba26 [Accessed 17 Feb. 2020].
(2) 2. Lee D. Uber self-drive crash 'mostly due to human error' [Internet]. BBC News. 2019 [cited 17 February 2020]. Available from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50484172
(3) 3. List of self-driving car fatalities [Internet]. En.wikipedia.org. [cited 17 February 2020]. Available from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-driving_car_fatalities
(4) 4. SUSTAINABILITY | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary [Internet]. Dictionary.cambridge.org. [cited 17 February 2020]. Available from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sustainability
(5) 5. Leblanc R. Learn More About E-Waste Recycling With These Facts and Figures [Internet]. The Balance Small Business. 2020 [cited 17 February 2020]. Available from: https://www.thebalancesmb.com/e-waste-recycling-facts-and-figures-2878189
Full cost breakdown and Sustainable impact
Throughout the project there was a running total of how much the micromouse was costing, this price includes failed attempts at PCBs and estimations of possible costs had the project not been cut short due to unforeseen circumstances, for example the 3D printed case.
As seen in the image to the left the micromouse ended up costing just short of £221 to produce. This is clearly a large amount, and is thus unsustainable. If however we were asked as a team to complete the tasks again, changes could be made to lower this value. For example, the team lost a lot of money by requiring to print additional PCB's so therefore if this wasn't in the case and we nailed the proteus first time then the price could dramatically reduced. The point to take away from this is that the whole process is a steep learning curve and as a team we have all learnt from our mistakes and now know how to be much more efficient if we undertook the project again.
Alongside this you must factor in the amount of time that was spent within the laboratory and the help from academic staff, all this also comes with its own costs.
If you were to say that we spent 3 hours in the lab for the first 10 weeks in semester 1 and 6 hours each week for the 8 weeks that we could attend in semester two with the standard living wage for an 18-20 year old at the would have been current rate at the time being £6.15 then the overall price of labour per team member would have been £479.70.
This price does not include all the time that Conor as the webmaster put into making the website as best as it can be. Including this price would probably add another 61.50 onto the bill making the combined cost of each team members salary be £1980.3.
If you were to then add the cost of the physically running the laboratories, then you would be looking at a much larger price than that. This then makes you think is the micromouse actually a sustainable project and looking at the prices you would probably say no and you would be right however the mouse is saved by one key point, and that point is that a large amount of the parts can be recycled and disposed of safely.
By recycling any broken parts and eventually the whole micromouse means it a lot more sustainable. Alongside this, the low profile design of the micromouse means that there is less used material used and most importantly less material wasted in the printing of the case for it therefore meaning the low profile design doesn't just add aesthetic appeal but also improves the sustainability of the micromouse.
The Website
In regards to maintaining the website for the remainder of the assessment period, I (Conor) will be uploading any new information that i can find and each member of the team can do the same. I will check on it every week to ensure that it is still functioning as it should, however as of Friday the 3rd of April the website is deemed complete. If any new information for the requirements of the website is brought to the light then i shall raise them with the team and we will collectively work on completing the new tasks, however as of the 3rd of April the website is complete and ready for inspection.