A new generation of self-driving cars should eradicate the dangers posed by fallible human motorists, but an official has warned that they could pose a new threat: racist and sexist behavior.
The Law Commission, which is drafting the legal framework for autonomous vehicles, says they may “have difficulty recognizing dark-skinned faces in the dark” because facial recognition software may “recognize non-white and non-male faces” less accurately.
People with disabilities are also at risk: “The systems may not have been trained for the full range of wheelchairs and mobility scooters.”
Driverless systems are mainly designed by young men who do not put themselves in the shoes of others and thus overlook the different needs of those affected
