how do we think about self-driving cars
the technology is essentially here and
we now have to take a technology in
which machines can make a bunch of quick
decisions often times quicker than we
can that could drastically reduce
traffic fatalities could drastically
improve the efficiency of our
transportation grid help solve things
like carbon emissions their cause of
causing the warming of the planet but
Joey made a very elegant and simple
point which is what are the values that
we're going to embed in the cars if in
fact we're going to get all the benefits
of self-driving cars and how do we make
the public comfortable with it now some
of it's just right now the the
overriding concern of the public is
safety the the notion of essentially
taking your hands off the wheel but as
Joe pointed out there going to be a
bunch of choices that you have to make
you know a classic problem being if the
cars are driving and you can swerve to
avoid a pedestrian who maybe wasn't
paying attention it's not your fault
but if you swerve you're gonna go into a
wall and might kill yourself and how do
you make the calculation it's about odds
and airbags and speed and all that that
you can have that machine make that
decision but that's a moral decision not
just a pure utilitarian of decision and
who's setting up those rules do we have
broad consensus around what those rules
are that's going to be important we're
going to have the same set of questions
when it comes to medicine you know we
have invested heavily in thinking about
precision medicine or individualized
medicine thinking about how the
combination of the human genome and
you know computer data and and a large
enough sample size can potentially
arrive at a whole host of cures
Parkinson's Alzheimer's cancer there are
a whole bunch of interesting choices
that we're gonna have to make as we
proceed in this because the better we
get at it the more predictive we are
about certain genetic variations having
an impact how we think about insurance
how we think about medical pricing who
gets what when how is that something
that we're gonna hand out over to an
algorithm and if so who's writing it so
so these are going to be unavoidable
questions and I think that Jo is exactly
right making sure that the broad public
that's not necessarily going to be
following every single iteration of this
debate still feels as if their voice is
heard they're represented that the
people in the room are mindful of a
range of equities that's going to be
really important and what is the role of
government in that context as we start
to get into these ethical questions well
my instinct is initially the role is a
convener the way I've been thinking
about the regulatory structure as AI
emerges is that early in a technology a
thousand flowers should vote and the
government should have a relatively
light touch investing heavily in
research making sure that there's a
conversation between basic research and
applied research and you know companies
that are trying to figure out how to
apply it you know a good example of
where this has worked pretty well I
think is in predicting the weather got
big data really complex systems
government bases that hey we got all
this data and
suddenly a whole bunch of folks are
gathering around and working with the
National Weather Center and developing
new apps and we've actually been able to
predict an oncoming tornado three four
times faster than it used to be would
that saves lives that's a that's a good
example of where the government isn't
doing all the work initially but is
inviting others to participate as
technologies emerge and mature then
figuring out how they get incorporated
into existing regulatory structures
becomes a tougher problem and the
government needs to be involved a little
bit more not always to force the new
technology into the square peg that
exists but maybe to change the peg and
one of the things that we're trying to
do for example is to get the Federal
Drug Administration the FDA to redesign
how it's thinking about genetic medicine
when a lot of its rules regulations were
designed for a time when you know it was
worrying about a heart stent there is a
very different problem so basic research
from government convening to make sure
the conversations are happening ensuring
transparency but as things mature making
sure that there is a transition and a
and a seamless way to get the technology
to rethink regulations and as Joey
pointed out making sure that the
regulations themselves reflect a
broad-based set of values because
otherwise if it's not transparent you
know we may find that it's
disadvantaging certain people certain
groups or that the public is just
suspicious of it okay one thing about
that and so there's it ties to two
things so one is when we did the this
car trolley problem I think we found
that most people liked the idea that the
driver or the passenger could be
sacrificed to save many people but they
would never buy that car
and that was that that was a short
version of the result the other related
thing which is I don't know if you've
heard the neurodiversity movement but
this is a this if we solve autism let's
say and Temple Grandin talks about this
a lot she says that Mozart and Einstein
and Tesla would all be considered
autistic if they were here today I don't
know that true but something might be on
the spectrum so if we were able to
eliminate autism and make everyone
neural no more normal
I bet a whole swath of MIT kids would
not be the way they are and you know you
probably wouldn't want any as a kid
somebody who was in Cambridge at the
Harvard Law School will be here III
didn't want to echo that stereotype in
someone's therapy but some of the
brilliant kids are kind of on the
spectrum and I think one of the things
that's really important whether we're
talking about autism or just diversity
broadly one of the problems I think is
that allowing the market and each
individual to decide okay I just want a
normal kid and I want a car that's gonna
protect me it's not going to lead to a
maximum for the societal benefit and I
think that whether it's government or
something we can't just have this market
driven and I think a lot of these
decisions are going to be like that I
think there's a great point and it
actually goes to the larger issue that
we wrestle with all the time around AI
and and science fiction taps into this
all the time part of what makes us human
are the kinks they're the mutations
they're the outliers they're the flaws
that create art or the new invention
right we we have to assume that if a
system is perfect then it's static and
part of what makes us who we are part of
makes us alive is that is dynamic and
we're surprised one of the challenges
that we'll have over time is to think
about where are those areas where it's
entirely appropriate for us just to have
things work exactly the way they're
supposed to without surprises now so an
airline flight might be a good exam
you know I'm not that interested in
having surprises if I have a smooth
flight every time I'm fine right
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