Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill

Groan. Are we going to take every college philosophy exercise idea but scratch out "human" and replace it with "robot"?

What next - do we need to program airplanes to crash in order to avoid being used as weapons? Cars programmed to torture people to reveal where the nuclear bomb is hidden?

More useful, (re)read the Asimov robot series and the effects of the zeroth law of robotics.

Look at the picture in the article[1]. Why is the car programmed to kill the only person actually obeying the law and not standing on the road?

1) http://www.technologyreview.com/sites/default/files/styles/v...