When I was in college, the I-35W bridge collapsed and many people died. In my differential equations class the next day, my professor was handing back our tests and told us–a class of engineers–that every red mark on our tests was another dead body.

You might scoff and say that's hyperbole, or scaremongering, and you might be right, but I took it as a warning. It is our responsibility as ethical engineers to ensure that people aren't harmed by the technology we create. It's true that self-driving cars will likely be safer than human-driven cars, but that doesn't absolve us of responsibility. In fact, it makes it all the more poignant.