Imagine arriving at Dubai or Abu Dhabi airport, tired after a long flight, and getting to the taxi stand to discover that your cab doesn’t have a driver.
He hasn’t stepped out for a smoke; this is entirely the way it’s meant to be. You get in the car, speak a few words into a microphone, then sit back and relax as you are safely and quickly delivered to your destination.
It sounds like a dream scenario – a stress-free journey during which you don't have to worry about erratic driving, giving directions or having to discuss the latest cricket scores or the weather with the driver.
Well, if some of the pundits – whose opinions are backed up by big money from the likes of Google, Uber, Tesla and probably, but not officially, Apple – are right, that could be happening very soon.
Indeed, Dubai is among a growing number of cities in the world experimenting with driverless car technology, with a target of 25 per cent of all car journeys being driverless by 2030.
The UAE is a great candidate for driverless vehicles: it has a wealth of people with disposable cash and an insatiable desire for the latest gadgets, a public love affair with motor vehicles and – let’s be brutally honest – some really, really bad drivers. Our unacceptably high road toll is stark evidence of that. Surely, one would think, robotic cars couldn’t be any worse.
But there’s the rub. According to car manufacturer Toyota, and academics who specialise in the ethical choices made by machines, humans will not be prepared to accept road deaths that occur due to the judgment of a robot.
Most accidents are preventable and it is highly probable that driverless cars will be much safer than those with drivers. But even if every car on the road was driverless, some vehicles would occasionally malfunction, or something unexpected would occur – such as a pedestrian running on to the road.
In this scenario, the computer driving the car might have to make a split-second choice between hitting the person on the road in front of them, or swerving into another vehicle, potentially causing the death of its own passengers and the passengers of the other vehicle.
According to Toyota, which has invested more than $1 billion (Dh3.67bn) into driverless technology, society won’t accept road deaths that are the result of machines making life-or-death decisions – even though we now accept human misjudgment as the cause of many fatalities.
Gill Pratt, who runs the Toyota Research Institute, said at the CES electronics and technology trade show in Las Vegas last week that no manufacturer was anywhere near developing the technology that would be needed to make driverless vehicles sophisticated enough to overcome this barrier.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are also working on this and similar issues. Their Moral Machine website has a "game" in which users are asked to judge how they think a driverless car ought to react in 13 scenarios.
It comes down to whether the car should risk the lives of its passengers or of other road users – but the number, ages and genders of the participants change from scenario to scenario.
The person playing the game is essentially required to judge the worth of their own friends and family against that of, among others, a dog, a young boy, a girl, a pregnant woman and an elderly man.
Few of us would be willing to say that we thought one life was more precious than another, let alone actually have to make that decision for real. So what would we think about having a computer make that distinction, and what criteria would we expect it to follow?
This is the debate that we have to have before driverless cars – and any technology that takes over roles involving moral or ethical judgments – become anything other than a novelty.
bdebritz@thenational.ae
On Twitter: @debritz
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
The biog
Age: 23
Occupation: Founder of the Studio, formerly an analyst at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi
Education: Bachelor of science in industrial engineering
Favourite hobby: playing the piano
Favourite quote: "There is a key to every door and a dawn to every dark night"
Family: Married and with a daughter
Jeff Buckley: From Hallelujah To The Last Goodbye
By Dave Lory with Jim Irvin
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
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On sale: Available for preorder now
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Usain Bolt's time for the 100m at major championships
2008 Beijing Olympics 9.69 seconds
2009 Berlin World Championships 9.58
2011 Daegu World Championships Disqualified
2012 London Olympics 9.63
2013 Moscow World Championships 9.77
2015 Beijing World Championships 9.79
2016 Rio Olympics 9.81
2017 London World Championships 9.95
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Biography
Favourite drink: Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day
Favourite non-Chinese food: Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour
Favourite Chinese dish: Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour
Best vacation: Returning home to China
Music interests: Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument
Enjoys reading: Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes
Favourite book: Chairman Mao Zedong’s poems
Ten10 Cricket League
Venue and schedule Sharjah Cricket Stadium, December 14 to 17
Teams
Maratha Arabians Leading player: Virender Sehwag; Top picks: Mohammed Amir, Imad Wasim; UAE players: Shaiman Anwar, Zahoor Khan
Bengal Lions Leading player: Sarfraz Ahmed; Top picks: Sunil Narine, Mustafizur Rahman; UAE players: Mohammed Naveed, Rameez Shahzad
Kerala Kings Leading player: Eoin Morgan; Top picks: Kieron Pollard, Sohail Tanvir; UAE players: Rohan Mustafa, Imran Haider
Pakhtoons Leading player: Shahid Afridi; Top picks: Fakhar Zaman, Tamim Iqbal; UAE players: Amjad Javed, Saqlain Haider
Punjabi Legends Leading player: Shoaib Malik; Top picks: Hasan Ali, Chris Jordan; UAE players: Ghulam Shabber, Shareef Asadullah
Team Sri Lanka Cricket Will be made up of Colombo players who won island’s domestic limited-overs competition
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Abu Dhabi traffic facts
Drivers in Abu Dhabi spend 10 per cent longer in congested conditions than they would on a free-flowing road
The highest volume of traffic on the roads is found between 7am and 8am on a Sunday.
Travelling before 7am on a Sunday could save up to four hours per year on a 30-minute commute.
The day was the least congestion in Abu Dhabi in 2019 was Tuesday, August 13.
The highest levels of traffic were found on Sunday, November 10.
Drivers in Abu Dhabi lost 41 hours spent in traffic jams in rush hour during 2019
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
