International

Early last week foreign affairs commentator Jan van Benthem of the national daily newspaper Nederlands Dagblad condemned the bloody attack in Afghanistan in which the Taliban used an ambulance to deliver a bomb. He coupled this condemnation with a call not to let up on the fight against the ultimate evil which is terrorism. In this, Van Benthem found it necessary to attack supporters of a different, more effective approach, including the writer of this article. He even gave the impression that I was lacking the moral conviction to oppose this evil.

A self-drive car is at risk of being involved in an accident. The car now has two options: either it can crash into the conventional vehicle in front of it, which might injure the driver, or it swerves on to the pavement, where bystanders are then endangered. The chance of the driver of the conventional vehicle being injured is then greatly reduced, but the consequences for the pedestrians if the self-drive car chooses the second option will be greater. The car will of course do only what it has been programmed to do. But who makes this sort of decision when new technologies are being programmed?