European Commission AV ethics

In 2019, the European Commission inaugurated an expert panel to review the position the Commission should adopt in relation to the ethics associated with automated vehicles (AVs). In some quarters, this has been oversimplified as being a series of ‘Trolley problems’ - should the automated vehicle swerve left into one road user or swerve right into another. Clearly, this topic is much more complex and this panel, comprising ethicists, legal experts, technologists and social scientists explored how regulations can be developed to address ethical issues associated with AV deployment. The recommendations are published here.