An autonomous vehicle's perception system was trained on a dataset of images collected predominantly in sunny weather. In deployment, the vehicle encounters rain and fails to detect a pedestrian. Is this an ethical problem or just an engineering problem?
AIt is purely an engineering problem; ethics doesn't apply to technical failures
BIt is an ethical problem. The manufacturer had a moral duty to either ensure the system works in all foreseeable conditions or clearly disclose operational limits (ODD). Deploying a perception system without validating it in rain is ethically negligent because the failure can cause harm. This illustrates the engineering-ethics connection: technical choices (what data to use, how to validate) have ethical consequences
CEthics and engineering are completely separate; they don't interact
DThe pedestrian is ethically responsible for the failure because they should avoid rainy weather
This is a normative ethical question where reasonable people disagree. The discussion benefits from engagement with the concepts (autonomy, responsibility, personhood) rather than a 'correct' answer. The point is recognizing that robots raise new questions about how we organize society and that these questions merit serious deliberation.