Punishing autonomous machines? The example of autonomous cars

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: According to the statistics of the Federal Office, 86 percent of road-traffic accidents are caused by mistakes made by the car driver. The creation of autonomous cars could solve this problem! This essay pays attention to one moral aspect of autonomous machines, namely punishment. In this context, we will talk about the punishment of autonomous machines and this will be shown using the example of autonomous cars. The aim of this essay is to demonstrate how autonomous machines could be punished, or if it is really possible for them to be punished. The basis for these ideas is taken from the philosopher and business information technologist Oliver Bendel, the dissertation "Automaten als Träger von Rechten. Plädoyer für eine Gesetzesänderung" by Andreas Matthias, the essays "Killer robots" from Robert Sparrow and "Why you Can¿t Make a Computer that Feels Pain" by Daniel Denett as well as the anthology about autonomous machines by Thomas Christaller and Josef Wehner.