[ WP ] Your future self driving car has to choose between saving you or saving some strangers ( from r/futurology )

Win-Lose scenarios do happen. That's what congress said as it passed the bill into law. It was straightforward enough: now that AI was incorporated into every new car, there had to be an algorithm to determine who would be the `` loser'' if there ever came a moment when the car could not react in time and had to choose whether to protect the passengers or the pedestrians. 
 
 `` The algorithm that we've agreed upon'' announced Senator Zuckerberg, `` uses the 7G Internet access of all vehicles to pull up all information about the person or persons, create a life - value index of the group as a whole, and compare to that of all vehicle passengers. Should the indices be equal, the car will choose to protect its passengers.'' 
 
 `` It's pointless anyways.'' Ray slurred slightly as he stood from the bar stool. `` The odds of this ever happening are 1 in 700 billion. That's what the news said earlier at least. 1 in 700 billion! Why did we even bother?'' He asked nobody in particular. 
 
 Ray was n't what you might expect. He was a scientist at some lab nearby, the last at the bar after celebrating a new breakthrough they'd just made. A generally nice guy, but nothing else was very remarkable about him. A wife, one kid, etc. 
 
 He grabbed his coat to head home and hit the button to get his car to come pick him up. 
 
 As he lie in the back trying to get in a nap before getting home, a man is thrown out of the woods and directly in the car's path. 
 
 The cpu runs all calculations and determines that the man is already too close to the vehicle. It could never turn enough or stop in time to avoid him without its passenger being thrown from the car. 
 
 The new Win-Lose system, updated as the Senator gave his speech, is activated and scans the person to determine their index. 
 
 The scan returns nothing. 
 
 This person has no social accounts, no bank accounts, no government IDs, no trace of existence anywhere. He has never appeared on any image anywhere, not even from a passing satellite. The AI tries to conceive of this. A person who does n't exist. An index with no value, not even 0. A person it is not prepared for. 
 
 The man looks on in horror as the car comes inches from him. In that last moment before the car would hit him, the man sees a message displayed on the windshield: 
 
 `` What are you?'' 
 
 Ray curses slightly under his breath as the car seems to hit a pothole or some animal and turns over to go back asleep. 
 
 1 in 700 billion.
