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Ethical issues in the automobile industry
Ethics in the aerospace industry
Ethical issues in the automobile industry
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Since the industrial revolution, the field of engineering has allowed society to flourish through the development of technological advances at an exponential rate. Similar to other professionals, engineers are tasked with making ethical decisions, especially during the production and distribution processes of new inventions. One field that has encountered ethical dilemmas since its inception is the automotive industry. Today, the dawn of the autonomous, self-driving, vehicle is upon us. In this new-age mode of transportation, humans will be less responsible for decisions made on the road. With the wide adoption of autonomous vehicles, there exist a possibility to reduce traffic-related accidents. Even though computers have the ability
to perform calculations faster than humans, drawbacks to self-driving cars exist. Ultimately, computers are at the mercy of their human programmers. Therefore, the decisions the autonomous vehicles will make are predetermined by the software developer. One of the scenarios that must have a fixed outcome is the potential life-or-death unavoidable accident. Should the self-driving car be programmed to save its passengers at any and all cost? An autonomous vehicle turns a corner only to find that it is “on course for an unavoidable collision with a group of 10 people in the road with walls on either side” (O'Callaghan). The car then has two options. The vehicle can swerve into one of the side walls while causing the passengers severe harm, or even death. Alternatively, the car can make an attempt to stop. If it makes an attempt to stop, the car will, at the minimum, keep the passengers safe but will likely hit the group of people, creating some degree of injury. How should the vehicle be programmed to respond? If the situation is changed so that the car can either hit the group of people or swerve into one pedestrian, should the autonomous vehicle be programmed to respond differently? These are the questions and situations artificial intelligence developers are facing in the wake of brining self-driving cars to market. How should they design ethically responsible autonomous vehicles?
This report was made to show how Action Modular can increase their profits and make them more marketable. The trucking industry is an industry that has and will be around for a long time. As long as there are manufacturers and consumers requiring their freight to be moved, there will be a need for trucks. If the marketing trend is monitored regularly by putting the right people in place and being proactive regarding the equipment and freight rates. Action Modular will be highly marketable and can yield more in revenue versus decreasing the revenue by utilizing outside carrier.
When we consider the case of the Ford Pinto, and its relative controversy, through the varied scope of ethical viewpoints, the results might surprise us. From a personal standpoint, as a consumer, the idea of selling a vehicle to the masses with such a potentially devastating flaw is completely unethical. When we consider the case from other directions and other ethical viewpoints, however, it makes it clear that often ethics are a matter of perspective and philosophy. It’s also clear that there are cases where more information will muddy the waters, rather than clear them.
The aerospace industry is fairly new in our day in age. It has been recorded in history that the first flight ever by man took place in Kitty Hawk, NC roughly 100 years ago. Since that first model, drastic improvements have been made in aerospace technology. Aerospace has evolved from simple prop planes to sound barrier breaking jets and even to space shuttles. The very definition of aerospace in the adjective or active form is “of or relating to aerospace, to vehicles used in aerospace or the manufacture of such vehicles, or to travel in aerospace.” In general, aerospace deals with any dynamic manufactured vehicle that travels above the surface of the earth. This, as you might expect, leaves two possibilities, the atmosphere or our earth, and outer space. Such basic examples of aerospace vehicles are Cessna planes, Black Hawk helicopters, Goodyear blimps and the Columbia Space Shuttle. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, aerospace has and will continue to be an integrated part of our society.
The term “ethical business” is seen, by many people, as an oxymoron. This is because a business’s main objective is to make as much money as possible. Making the most money possible, however, can often lead to unethical actions. Companies like Enron, WorldCom, and Satyam have been the posterchildren for how corporations’ greed lead to unethical practices. In recent times however, companies have been accused of being unethical based on, not how they manage their finances, but on how they treat the society that they operate in. People have started to realize that the damage companies have been doing to the world around them is more impactful and far worse than any financial fraud that these companies might be engaging in. Events like the BP oil
It might be hard to see where the self-driving car could have issues with safety but an interesting question arises when an accident is unavoidable. The question posed is “How should the car be programmed to act in the event of an unavoidable accident? Should it minimize the loss of life, even if it means sacrificing the occupants, or should it protect the occupants at all costs? Should it choose between these extremes at random?” (ArXiv). This is a very interesting question surrounding ethics. I’m not sure if there is a right answer to the question, which could stall the self-driving car industry. Before self-driving cars are mass produced a solution needs to be found to the question about unavoidable accidents. Although this question is a problem, there may not be a need to address the problem. It is said that “"driver error is believed to be the main reason behind over 90 percent of all crashes" with drunk driving, distracted drivers, failure to remain in one lane and falling to yield the right of way the main causes.” (Keating). Self-driving cars could eliminate those problems entirely and maybe with all cars on the road being self-driving cars, there would be no “unavoidable accidents”. Safety is the main issue the self-driving car is trying to solve in transportation and seems to do a good job at
In Module 1, Kindred Todd faced quite a few ethical dilemmas that included her values and technical ineptness. The first predicament was tested her personal morals and ethics. According to, Cumming and Worley, OD practitioners are dealing more and more with value conflicts with powerful outside groups (Cummings & Worley, 2008). Kindred was immediately faced with the issue of knowing what was ethically correct but being told the unethical approach was the best in order to benefit the client and her job security. Although compromising is one of the many skills of organization developers there are still morals that should be followed on each assignment. Kindred, know that deceiving the clients was unethical, took the first step to working on behalf of the client and immediately involved her superior, Larry, to resolve a potential conflict In the project. While her actions went in vain when she told her boss to remove her from the project and provide the client with a more qualified resource, Kindred did what she thought to be the best approach.
Many ethical dilemmas are philosophical in nature, an ethical issue can be described as a problem with no clear resolution. In order to solve the issue or dilemma a consensus between the parties involved must be reached. There are several reasons to come to an agreement over an ethical dilemma, it is the basis for all aspects of personal and professional dealings. Each one of us is part of a civilized society and as such it is our responsibility to be rational, honest and loyal in our dealings with others. (Alakavuklar, 2012) states that individuals make decisions for different situations in business life involving various ethical dilemmas. Each time either consciously or unconsciously individuals may follow some ethical approaches
If the aspiration of self-driving vehicles is ever to come to fruition, they will need to be able to mimic the human thought process in order to operate in a responsible manner. But with the complexity of the human mind it becomes very difficult to reduce this process to a series of mathematical equations. Patrick Lin explores this complication of ethics as it relates to autonomous vehicles in his article “Why Ethics Matters for Autonomous Cars” by looking at some of the more acute sections of their programming. At such an early juncture in the development process, Lin makes no presumptions of having answers but instead raises concerns regarding this dilemma.
With the introduction of autonomous vehicles, various social dilemmas have arisen into the mainstream of debate. One of the biggest questions to come up is whether autonomous vehicles should be primarily utilitarian in nature, meaning that they reduce the total number of injuries and deaths on roadways as much as possible, or self-protective in nature, meaning that they protect the occupants of the vehicle no matter what, in every scenario. These two can't be mixed without causing unrest and debate on whether the correct decision was made by the vehicle; it has to be one or the other. However, when taking into account the primary purpose of developing autonomous vehicles, I believe that they should serve a utilitarian purpose, minimizing the
Everyone in this world has experienced an ethical dilemma in different situations and this may arise between one or more individuals. Ethical dilemma is a situation where people have to make complex decisions and are influenced based on personal interest, social environment or norms, and religious beliefs (“Strategic Leadership”, n.d.). The leaders and managers in the company should set guidelines to ensure employees are aware and have a better chance to solve and make ethical decisions. Employees are also responsible in understanding their ethical obligations in order to maintain a positive work environment. The purpose of this case study is to identify the dilemma and analyze different decisions to find ways on how a person should act
Toyota issues in automotive industry resulted from a lack of moral and ethical obligations to loyal customers. In fact, people encounter ethics at one time or another. A business expectation is to act in manner upholding society values. According to authors Trevino and Nelson, (2004) states, “a set of moral principals or values, or the principals, norm, and standards of conduct governing a group or individual.” On the other hand, three ethical criteria determined in this discussion like obligation, moral ideas, and consequences which this article highlights an ethical dilemma with automobiles makers.
The consumer appeal for the commercial trucking industry is based on the needs to move goods across the states and the world to grocery stores, department stores, and everywhere a product needs to be put on a shelf or. The environmental factor is that sometimes there is congestion on the freeway. during rush hour, which sometimes makes it hard to cross traffic. However, with the carb emission laws that were implemented in for California that is supposed to eliminate the emission in the air by 2020 for all commercial trucks. Commercial trucks are needed in the everyday life of products being.
With self-driving cars on the horizon for the average consumer, an ethical dilemma is made apparent. Who is to blame in the advent of an accident involving a car that drives itself? There are many situations in which the car could make a “wrong” judgement call based off of its internal decision models. The problem occurs when the decision the car makes differs from what the average person would consider a good moral choice. A current issue relates to who is responsible for an assisted driving accident, when the car attempts to save the driver or a pedestrian, and the other issue involves self-driving cars and the responsibility of computer model decisions.
In normal automobile operation, the number of incidents where the driver has to choose between two options that both involve killing innocents is practically zero. So, while manufacturers may find clever solutions to these more extreme ethical dilemmas, and while lawyers and lawmakers may find a way to limit the carmakers’ liability, there are a number of ethical problems that self-driving cars may face that neither the manufacturers, the programmers, or the lawyers will consider. That is—while programmers may find ways to encode their explicit, idealized ethical rulesets into the cars, and even if these rulesets are (somehow) universally correct, and everyone agrees that its decisions are perfect—all humans have implicit biases, prejudices, and heuristics. These are unconscious, yet reflected in all of our actions. Troublingly, because they are unconscious, they are often also unacknowledged.
Automotive ethics is a subject that is often over looked. Not many people tend to look at what is ethical in the automotive industry; most people are generally satisfied if they can get a good deal on a car. However, in reality, automotive ethics has an affect on how automobiles are made, what regulations the government puts on them, and their hazard on the environment. Before the engine was invented, life revolved around a much more complicated system of transportation. Much advancement in technology has been made to make the common lifestyle today much easier; a few examples are cellular telephones and onboard navigation systems in automobiles. Cellular telephones and navigation systems have become an everyday item, but nobody looks at the dangers that can have while operating a motor vehicle.