Panicco 1

Annotated Bibliography

Why Autonomous Cars are Beneficial to Society

Elliot Panicco
Professor Malcolm Campbell
English 1103
March 9, 2015

Panicco 2

Annotated Bibliography
Bailey, Ronald. "The Moral Case For Self-Driving Cars." Reason 46.4 (2014): 18. Points of View
Reference Center. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
Bailey provides great solutions to many posing problems with autonomous cars. Bailey
answers the biggest question of who is responsible when autonomous cars crash? He
answers the question a few different ways. The first saying that insurance companies
would always cover the damage, which is a great idea but could pose problems for those
who cannot afford insurance. The second says that everyone must sign a contract at
purchase of the vehicle saying that they are responsible for the car even though they may
not be driving. Bailey provides another great idea saying that with each one of these cars,
there are multiple cameras which could tell who was really at fault for each crash. The
author also tells us the advantages of autonomous cars. First he says that because
autonomous cars are safer, death and injury would go down because of the lack of
accidents. Second he informs us that currently humans use about 5 percent of the road at
one time, meaning that 95 percent of all the pavement put down for cars isnt being
utilized at every moment. With autonomous cars we could utilize up to 80 percent of the
roadways at any given moment, increasing efficiency by 1600 percent. Having
autonomous cars also means fewer cars because now they can drive and pick up people
and take them places while others are at work or school. This article is very effective in
communicating several ideas in a condensed and easy to read manner. It provided a lot of
new unfound information, as well as possible solutions to many of the problems that we
face with the unknown of autonomous cars. This article was the most helpful with my
research and gave me many more ideas and places to research. The author was biased

Panicco 3

towards the idea of autonomous cars because when he talks about autonomous car
crashes he acts as though no one will get hurt and the only problem will be getting the
vehicle fixed. He does not cover the possibility of death and who is responsible for that.
He is trying to pursued the readers of the general public that autonomous cars are a
perfect answer to many of societys problems. This article provided me with a lot of new
information to questions that had no answer. I agree with Bailey that autonomous cars are
the way of the future and that they will be safer and we should just accept them into
society.

Kanter, Zack. "How Ubers Autonomous Cars Will Destroy 10 Million Jobs And Reshape The
Economy by 2025." CBS SF Bay Area. CBS, 27 Jan. 2015. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
Kanter goes into detail about how the introduction of autonomous cars will have a large
impact on the economy and millions of jobs in his article published by CBS. He explains
how autonomous cars could help taxi services like Uber because 75% of the fair goes to
the driver. This means that Uber could increase their income to 50 percent while
simultaneously cutting the price per fair in half. Only 9,000 Uber vehicles will be needed
to replace all of the taxis in New York City and fairs could be cut to 50 cents a mile.
Kanter then explains some of the downfalls of having autonomous cars. He says the 99%
of the cars on the road will be off with a system of all autonomous cars. This would cause
a large decrease in revenue for car companies and the laying off of thousands of workers.
However the author estimates that sharing autonomous cars instead of owning one would
allow 1 trillion dollars of now usable income for the country. Money wouldnt be the only
thing saved. Lives will be saved too. About 30,000 lives will be saved every year with an

Panicco 4

autonomous fleet of cars. Also billions of gallons of gas will be saved every year. Kanter
provides great facts and numbers for the advantages and disadvantages of having
autonomous cars. This source was able to give me a good insight to the statistical
evidence that autonomous cars would bring to the table. Kanter took a unique angle on
this article, one that focused more on how businesses and the economy will be effected
by autonomous cars. It appears that he is not biased towards autonomous cars because he
tells us how they will create job loss as well as about a trillion dollars in revenue. I will
use this article in my project because even though it is not a counter argument it still is
able to provide a fresh new angle on the idea of autonomous cars.
Lin, Patrick. "Here's a Terrible Idea: Robot Cars with Adjustable Ethics Settings." Wired. N.p.,
18 Aug. 2014. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.
Lin provides us with the view that autonomous cars are not as great as everyone thinks
they are and that they pose many new questions that are difficult to answer. He explains
to us that with self-driving cars comes a lot of responsibility. Lin conducted a survey
asking people if they would want settings for what to happen during an accident, or in
other words who should die and who should live. 44 percent of people wanted to have
this feature included in their autonomous car. Lin conducted another survey asking if
people would sacrifice themselves to save a child they were about to hit. 64 percent of
people reported that they would kill the child. Whether or not we would be able to
program the ethics setting there is still a lot of issues. Lin tells us that people could sue
the engineers for writing code that choose to take a persons life is wrong and how can
they decide whos life is more important? In other words, do you program the car to
protect the passengers in all situations or do you identify who else is at danger and decide

Panicco 5

whos life is more important. Lins article is effective in a way that makes us hesitate and
think Are we ready for autonomous cars and the questions that they bring Lin provides
the counter argument for why autonomous cars are not beneficial to society and how they
can tear it apart. He is clearly biased towards them in that there are too many questions
about responsibility and ethics. I will definitely use this article in my project because it is
my counter argument, which brings up many questions that need to be answered before
autonomous cars are released to the public.
Urmson C, and W Whittaker. Self-Driving Cars and the Urban Challenge. Ieee Intelligent
Systems. 23.2 (2008): 66-68. Print.
This academic article explains that all autonomous cars are made for the same purpose
but not all are made the same way. Urmson and Whittaker say that autonomous cars
would be much safer than cars driven by humans and that they would be more fuelefficient. The authors are able to explain this by saying that because the cars will get into
fewer accidents, safety will be less of an issue and manufactures will start to take out
safety equipment allowing for lighter and more fuel-efficient cars. The authors go on to
say that those who cannot drive due to old age or disability would no longer be home
bound or need to rely on others for driving them around. Urmson and Whittaker then tell
us about a Chevy Tahoe named Boss and how it transformed into an autonomous car.
Boss is not like the other autonomous cars that use cameras at almost every spot on the
car to help the car see the road. It was able to drive very effectively with only the use of
GPS, laser, and radar. This only worked because Boss was apart of a challenge test track
that had only cars and no traffic signals or signs. The radar and laser were used to tell
where the other cars were in relation to Boss and the GPS was used to tell where the lines

Panicco 6

were on the road and to indicate what the other cars were doing. I believe this to be a very
reliable source because it is a scholarly article from Carnegie Mellon University and it
was peer reviewed. I do think that although the creation of Boss was a success it was not
too beneficial to the autonomous car industry. There were too many missing factors like
traffic signs signals as well as pedestrians. It did provide new information about how
GPS can be used to track and predict car movements using the lines on the roadway. Also
the authors were able to explain how autonomous cars could be beneficial to not only the
average person but also those who couldnt drive. This academic article gave me a new
perspective on why autonomous cars are beneficial to society. The authors are biased
because they themselves built the autonomous car but in a way that would not work for
society. This is why I will more than likely not include this article in my project. It
provided a little bit new information about the subject but too much information about
their project.