Ethical Issues of Autonomous Metro

Opened in 1904, the New York City subway is one of the oldest public transportation systems in the world. Over the past decades, we have witnessed a gradual decline in the trust of NYC metro system due to the lack of both punctuality and maintenance. One proposed solution to renovate the city’s metro system is the implementation of the autonomous subway system, like those in London and Amsterdam.

Without any doubts, autonomous metro will benefit citizens in various ways. We are likely to see clean trains that always arrive on time. Moreover, as on-board employees do not need to operate the train, they can serve as customer service team, further increasing the satisfaction of the millions daily commuters.

However, just like the autonomous vehicles, autonomous metro will induce several ethical issues and considerations. For instance, as autonomous system relies heavily on computers, a failure of the system will create catastrophic results. Moreover, as computer system always follow its program instructions, it has relatively small degree of freedom. In other words, such system has relatively less flexibility in dealing with emergency situations. What if there is a person in front of the train? Emergency stop will harm the passengers on board while moving forward will kill the person. Perhaps no one knows the answer for these questions. Only after successfully tackled those dilemmas and problems can autonomous metro truly contribute to our society.