Intel’s March 13, 2017 agreement to acquire Mobileye puts a corporate transaction beside an older engineering proposal. For an interfaith discussion, we suggest reading them at different levels: ownership is the subject of the new agreement, while the January 4 BMW partnership release provides technical functions with which to examine the difference between describing a situation and choosing an action. [bmw-testfleet][intel-mobileye]

Begin a worksheet with a descriptive column. The January release assigned EyeQ5 interpretation of surrounding vision-sensor input and localization, and described its intended combination with Intel CPU and FPGA technology. It also outlined a model of the vehicle’s surroundings built from vision, radar and lidar. Place these items under information about the environment, keeping the partners’ plans distinct from demonstrated performance. [bmw-testfleet]

A second column concerns action selection. BMW and Mobileye also planned driving-policy development, including reinforcement learning. Put that work beside the environmental description, then add a third column for unresolved values: whose interests should receive priority, and what reasons would justify that priority? These columns organize a conversation; they do not assert a physical processing sequence or describe an implemented moral rule. [bmw-testfleet]

Participants can then test a proposed conclusion: does combining several kinds of sensor information establish how competing human interests ought to be weighed? Our answer is that the technical description alone cannot settle that value judgment. The acquisition agreement likewise concerns a company, not an ethical settlement. Keeping observations, planned decision functions and moral reasons separate gives people of different traditions a shared exercise without claiming they share an answer. [bmw-testfleet][intel-mobileye]

Source documents

  1. Intel to Acquire Mobileyehttps://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/243/intel-to-acquire-mobileye
  2. BMW Group, Intel and Mobileye will have autonomous test vehicles on the roads by the second half of 2017https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0266961EN/bmw-group-intel-and-mobileye-will-have-autonomous-test-vehicles-on-the-roads-by-the-second-half-of-2017?language=en