I was disappointed that David Edmonds (Driverless Cars still need a moral compass. But what kind?, Opinion, 15 November) failed to credit one of our most brilliant British moral philosophers who developed the “trolley problem” as a way to abstract the reasoning behind ethical decision-making. Philippa Foot is rarely given her due even though these thought experiments are regularly cited in modern philosophy. Her inventiveness has helped inspire the next generation of philosophers to engage with the practical challenges of artificial intelligence. And we wonder why philosophy is dominated by men.
Richard Gilyead
Saffron Walden, Essex
• It was sad to see David Edmonds fall for the propaganda from Silicon Valley regarding driverless cars. This new technology will require that drivers be able to intervene, but it’s well known that the less you do something, the worse you get at it. So the less you drive, the less skilled your intervention is and the more dangerous autonomy becomes. The same is likely to be true of ethics. In essence, dependence on technology is a form of outsourcing. To outsource (as many companies are discovering) is to export skills. Do we really want to export ethical thinking to technology companies?
Margaret Heffernan
Farrington Gurney, Somerset
• What does David Edmonds mean by something (a probability?) being “almost infinitesimally small”? That if it were to happen it would be very unique?
Richard Seabrook
London
•Re “Driverless cars still need a moral compass. But what kind?” – has anyone considered Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics?
Bryn Hughes
Wrexham
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