I wonder what the solution to a trolley problem would be for autonomous vehicles. Would a trolley problem situation exist if all cars are autonomous?
One guideline states that an attempt at reduction in the total amount of human damage is defensible (Rule 9, pg. 11), which supports killing 5 people.
Another (Rule 8, pg. 11) states that genuine ethical dilemmas, such as life-vs-life situations, should be judged later on a case-by-case basis by a court because there are no concrete moral guidelines by which to ex-ante program a computer by, referencing that a human driver could pick either choice in such a dilemma and perhaps act illegally but not necessarily culpably. I take this to mean that deviating to kill one person could also be reasonably defended.
How does this make sense? 5>1 therefore _diverting_ to hit 1 person instead of 5 is reducing total amount of human damage.
There is no trolley problem. When vehicles are on the road and operating according to the rules of the road, there is no choice about whether to swerve to avoid something at the expense of another. Cars are not being commanded to leave the road to avoid crashing into something on the road. You stay on the road, stay in your lane, and don't get involved with people on the sidewalk, etc.
If there's a bicyclist, motorcyclist, etc, they are just as much a vehicle as you are, occupying their position in another lane, or in front/behind you. You stop in your lane, change lanes if safe, and that's it.
There's no, "sacrifice 1 to save 3" kind of argument.
But I do agree that I don't see such scenarios ever occurring in reality because computer controlled cars are not going to get themselves anywhere near a trolley situation. They'll put the brakes on long before a human would ever recognise the situation as catastrophic. Almost all unexpected emergency situations are straightforward: the correct response will be to brake hard; the consequences are not ethical but rather dictated by physics.
Swerving onto the footpath is an absurd option for countless reasons and cars shouldn't be allowed even if the algorithm is fairly sure the footpath is clear.
The closest plausible scenario to the trolley problem I can imagine actually occurring: "An unidentified object has fallen onto the road meters in front of me, and I am boxed in with cars to my immediate left right and rear so I can't swerve. Do I break hard and probably get rear ended or do I break soft and definitely crash into the unidentified object?"
My point was more that your responsibility should be to avoid crashing into things. In the posted scenario, you're probably better off slowing down and being rear-ended than smashing into whatever and then _also_ being rear-ended.
On a slightly different point, if someone's following me so closely that I'm properly worried about their stopping distance, I will slow down and let them pass. Better that the idiot is in front where I can see them properly and they can't crash into me, and then I don't have to worry about the car behind me if I need to brake suddenly.
Every time I see these tiresome discussions about "should we save a child and kill a pensioner", it's a signal that the speaker has no idea how autonomous vehicles work.
The trolley problem as bystander is a different thing and generally not acting is the legally safer option though in both cases the likely sentence would be minor through various means.
edit/additional note: while you can't shoot down the plane legally and no soldier will be obligated to follow such an order, they would likely also fall under the "Übergesetzlicher Notstand". It's not a legal basis but simply a defense.