Bored with grading? Looking for a topic to jump-start holiday dinners? Turn to the newly revised trolley problem. Most of us know the traditional problem: A trolley is hurtling down the tracks, certain to hit five helpless people tied to the tracks. You are standing by a lever that will shift the trolley onto a side track. The only problem is that another person (albeit just one) is tied to that side track. Do you act, sacrificing one person to save five others? Or do you let the trolley kill the five people in its direct path?
Most of us discussed this problem in first-year Torts or Criminal Law. The problem was intriguing despite its anachronisms (Trolleys? Is that what they have in Disneyland?) and B-movie overtones (Six different people tied to two different tracks?). But now the problem is back--and it's timely.
Driverless Cars
Driverless cars are gaining ground every month. Several manufacturers will feature their latest models at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show. The cars won't be in holiday gift piles this year or next, but we may not have to wait much longer than that.
Driverless cars sense obstacles in the road and make decisions about how to react. Is the obstacle a piece of paper that the car can drive over? Is it a chunk of wood? Can the car stop in time or does it need to swerve? Can it safely swerve, or will it hit something else? The cars gather and process immense amounts of data to make these decisions--probably more than we capture with our human senses.
We, however, are the ones who will program these cars. Should we program the cars to swerve to avoid a group of people in the road--even if the swerve will kill a pedestrian on the sidewalk? What if the only way to avoid the group in the road is to swerve into a wall, which is likely to kill the car's own passengers? Should individual purchasers have the right to program their own cars on these matters? Or will manufacturers (or government) make the decisions for us?
I find these questions fascinating, not only because of what they tell us about our relationship with technology, but because of what they reveal about our own brains. We can think about the trolley problem all we want, but how would any of us react in an emergency? Would we even see the single person on the side track? Would we mistake a large branch for a person? Will an autonomous car's detectors make more or fewer mistakes like that?
Enjoy the discussion and, if you do, check out this conference on the issue in April. Happy holidays!
You guys ask the most irrelevant questions to a schlepper solo like me hacking out a living so I can pay for my Bronze Level Obama Care plan and IBR. The real question is: Who has INSURANCE? And if so, is it through State Farm, Coronet, Safeway and Direct Auto? (out of luck almost) They have a difficult time paying out claims. The second question is, What are my "Specials?" I don't want soft tissue crap. I want hospitalizations with broken bones, preferably. Those are the REAL questions. Then I can refer it to my PI buddy/guy and concentrate on getting my clients out of jail and their driver's licenses restored. I get a nice check in two years.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 24, 2015 at 12:04 PM
When I was in law school we got cynical about the absurd trolley problem, a bit like the movie cliché of the bomb ticking down,
We used to joke - strap a law professor to the tracks.
Then we got more realistic - a dean - a deputy dean (Pete the Pr!ck for exampl) - how about 2 Con law professors...
So as a lawyer and law graduate, let me propose a revised version - 5 law professors on each track - for this blog nominate the specialties (law and philosophy should be one) ... But in you pr law school - hey, name them....
Posted by: [M][a][c][K] | December 24, 2015 at 05:30 PM
Now, Brackets be nice to them, they still have never kissed a girl, er, I mean seen the inside of a court room or had a client threaten to kill them because they wanted their 3 bills back.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 24, 2015 at 06:04 PM
Now, what if the software is a neural network, so there are no explicit rules programmed in........
Posted by: Barry | December 24, 2015 at 06:22 PM
This legal hand-wringing over driverless cars is so lame and counter productive ... Over 30,000 people die each year in car accidents; if driverless cars can reduce the number of fatalities to less than 10,000 per year, then get out of the way ...
Posted by: Enrique Guerra Pujol | December 24, 2015 at 08:06 PM
Driverless cars will never be mainstream. Why? It's found in the lyrics of a vintage 80s Chevrolet commercial..."Grab the Wheel, and the road goes on...." If I want a "Driverless Car," I will use the bus. Now, lets get back to where the rubber meets the road. Legal profession jobs, placement rates and the grotesque over supply of lawyers. Check your respective schools ABA disclosures and notice the terrible numbers. Being a SOLO with zero experience, no work, nor an ongoing sustainable feeder network, or connections is UNEMPLOYED. Feather bedded jobs created by your clinics for a few months of make work is UNEMPLOYMENT. Don't hide behind concepts like "UNDERSERVED" or diversity. Diversity is good, but not if there are no jobs or work for everybody that needs it.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 25, 2015 at 03:13 PM
An incidental but perchance not insignificant observation: should you want to learn more about the brain, neuroscience might be a good place to start, but neither the questions (legal, psychological, ethical, what have you) nor the (possible) answers to the "new trolley problem," however "fascinating," will tell us anything about our brains; they may, however, reveal something about our minds (and hearts!).
Posted by: Patrick S. O'Donnell | December 25, 2015 at 06:12 PM
Sy, it's getting so old.,,
Posted by: Notapersona | December 25, 2015 at 08:00 PM
Maybe it's getting old for you. If you don't want to hear from folks like me or Nando, or Old Guy of Scam Bloggers or the legions of veteran and newbie attorneys who have no work then stop flooding the market with new attorneys. Stop drinking from the trough of unlimited Federal Student Loans. Stop lowering admissions standards to get asses in seats. No matter how hard I work, hustle and network, there just is not enough legal work when there are thousands and thousands of decent attorneys just like me. I will go away when my Schedule C returns to 65K, which isn't much in todays dollars. Why don't you professors and deans agree to accept a salary of around 40K a year?
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 25, 2015 at 09:01 PM
Not every thread needs to be about you (or law school scamming)
Posted by: Notapersona | December 25, 2015 at 09:12 PM
Maybe it should. I care about my buddies that can't find legal work. I am disgusted that I earn a lower middle class income as an attorney and did everything right. We didn't bargain for a flooded attorney market. Some professors and deans by pontificating about the law and driverless cars seem to have a "let them eat cake" attitude. You folks are blind to the real world.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 25, 2015 at 09:22 PM
The more apt question to ask involves students. You walk by the LSAT classroom 1 hour before the test. You know the truth about student employment outcomes and wasted human capital. Do you allow a roomful of young people to suicide, or do you speak out, sacrificing your job or the jobs of other legal scholars? Quite a dilemma.
Posted by: Jojo | December 25, 2015 at 11:11 PM
Sy,
I would not put DJM in the category of those who do not speak out. If you read carefully, you'll see that she is almost as much of a hate figure to the law school boosters and apologists as Paul Campos.
I have simply always regarded the "tramtrack" problem in it variations as a very silly exercise. More realistic ethical dilemmas would to me make sense; but that said, a harder question is whether law school deans and those who defended (and continue to defend) law school fakery over employment numbers and other outcome data have any right to teach ethics at all. And to be fair to DJM she has vocally put the question of law school outcomes in technical terms - repeatedly and to her cost.
Posted by: [M][a][c][K] | December 26, 2015 at 02:10 AM
in ethical terms
iPad spell correct.....
Posted by: [M][a][c][K] | December 26, 2015 at 02:11 AM
Brackets,
Ethics are far more interesting than this clichéd trolley problem. I heard the same hypo in the context of a bus driver with children passengers and 25 nuns crossing in front. Actually kind of boring. What I really want to discuss with you is the mind set of an attorney who steals a paltry sum of money from a client, say a PI settlement or earnest money deposit. Paraphrasing Joan Rivers, "Discuss"
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 26, 2015 at 02:36 AM
How about a mega firm that has impossible billing targets for associates, which leads to inflated bills, that benefits the partners - is there a difference?
Indeed consider that to the extent that many professors and deans have any practice experience, it is pretty likely to have been in such an environment.
Posted by: [M][a][c][K] | December 26, 2015 at 08:27 AM
DJM,
Thanks for your data-driven inquiry into the current state of the legal profession. You are one of only a handful who are doing so, and real reform will come from people like you.
Posted by: Jojo | December 26, 2015 at 08:43 AM
Brackets,
There are several differences between inflated bills/milking a file and outright theft from client. In the former one could argue that the transaction was consensual and that there was some justification for a lengthy memo on the application of International Shoe to a light plane crash on a State border. For a Solo to "borrow" the proceeds of a PI settlement ear marked for a treater and put the cash in a jewelry box at home without the client's knowledge is theft. The client did not give his informed consent.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 26, 2015 at 09:34 AM
Sy,
You have not read some of he bills I have.
Posted by: [M][a][c][K] | December 26, 2015 at 10:54 AM
Brackets,
You have my undivided attention. I need a good "chuckle." What did they bill out for? Is it any worse than that Chicago big law partner that got his ticket punched for billing 80K in cab fair because he felt "unfairly compensated" because his firm took him away from his family? His ticket was punched. I think again the difference in most overbilling scenarios, one has the CHOICE not to pay the bill.
Posted by: Sy Ablelman | December 26, 2015 at 11:50 AM