Autonomy vs. Safety in Shared Control Crowd Navigation

Shared control is a paradigm with great potential for increasing the autonomy of people who would otherwise struggle to use an electric powered wheelchair: by automatically handling tasks that the driver cannot, the wheelchair can ensure their safety and that of others when in shared spaces. However, imposing a uniform definition of safety on to wheelchair users runs the risk of actually diminishing their autonomy by removing their ability to assess risk and make decisions themselves. This issue is magnified in crowds, where one is responsible not only for one’s own safety, but also that of the other pedestrians. In this abstract we raise a number of related ethical issues that we have identified that are applicable to shared control in crowded spaces, as well as propose a framework for thinking about these issues.