Regulatory Standards Vacuum for Autonomous Vehicle Ethics State
Class
8f95463a
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#RegulatoryStandardsVacuumforAutonomousVehicleEthicsState
Definition
State in which a professional engineer is tasked with making recommendations about the ethical decision logic of an autonomous vehicle system in the absence of established national, governmental, or industry-specific standards governing how such systems must allocate harm in unavoidable crash scenarios — leaving the engineer without a regulatory floor or ceiling against which to benchmark the recommendation, and placing the full burden of ethical determination on professional judgment, general engineering ethics principles, and public welfare obligations rather than specific code compliance.
Properties
Subclass of
Definition
State in which a professional engineer is tasked with making recommendations about the ethical decision logic of an autonomous vehicle system in the absence of established national, governmental, or industry-specific standards governing how such systems must allocate harm in unavoidable crash scenarios — leaving the engineer without a regulatory floor or ceiling against which to benchmark the recommendation, and placing the full burden of ethical determination on professional judgment, general engineering ethics principles, and public welfare obligations rather than specific code compliance.
Scope Note
[proethica-intermediate-extended] State in which a new consumer or industrial product has been developed and is undergoing or has completed safety evaluation, but no applicable national, governmental, or industry-specific safety standards yet exist to govern that product or its potential impact — leaving the engineer and company without a regulatory floor or ceiling against which to benchmark safety, and placing the full burden of safety determination on professional judgment, general testing protocols, and ethical obligation rather than specific code compliance.
Source Evidence
Source Text
Engineer A is assigned to an engineering risk assessment team whose members are being asked to make a recommendation relating to potential situations that could arise in connection with the operation of driverless/autonomous vehicles
TTL
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proethica_intermediate_extended: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate-extended> .
<http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#RegulatoryStandardsVacuumforAutonomousVehicleEthicsState> a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Regulatory Standards Vacuum for Autonomous Vehicle Ethics State" ;
rdfs:comment "State in which a professional engineer is tasked with making recommendations about the ethical decision logic of an autonomous vehicle system in the absence of established national, governmental, or industry-specific standards governing how such systems must allocate harm in unavoidable crash scenarios — leaving the engineer without a regulatory floor or ceiling against which to benchmark the recommendation, and placing the full burden of ethical determination on professional judgment, general engineering ethics principles, and public welfare obligations rather than specific code compliance." ;
rdfs:subClassOf <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#State> .
Metadata
Ontology
Type
Class
Content Hash
8f95463a0000042e...Last Updated
2026-03-12 16:49
Extraction Provenance
Discovered in Case
165
Discovered In Pass
1
Discovered In Section
facts
First Discovered At
2026-02-27T23:23:14.080776+00:00
First Discovered In Case
165
Generated
2026-02-27T23:23:14.080776+00:00
Was Attributed To
Case 165 Extraction