Your Passengers Must Die

[steepholm]

The trolley problem is not just a thought experiment - it's a practical issue, at least for the AI programmers charged with teaching self-driving cars whom to spare and whom to kill in ticklish traffic conditions. That, at least, is the premise of MIT's Moral Machine project

Comments

[kalimac]

I find the trolley problem to be such a completely artificial setup that I can't even contemplate the question. It goes in the rubbish bin along with the ticking-bomb terrorist problem and all such other nonsense.

[nightspore]

The trolley problem is interesting as an exercise in narrative presentation. Why is it okay (as it is for most Americans, anyhow) to change the points sending the trolley towards one person, saving six, but not okay (for most Americans, anyhow) to shoot someone so that he falls onto the lever which will change the points and send a trolley down a track harmlessly, saving the six it would otherwise hit? Same question under the hood, but vastly different intuitions as to what to do.

[kalimac]

I don't care. The whole setup is so artificial that I can't answer any of those questions. Insert long rant on the subject here.

[steepholm]

It's certainly artificial in the sense of being invented, and perhaps contrived, but isn't that par for the course in philosophical thought experiments? And not uncommonly in film and fiction too, where I've several times witnessed people having to choose between saving a loved one or betraying their country, for example? I'm also wondering whether you have less objection to thought experiments, however unlikely, in other domains - such as the special relativity one about one twin taking a long space voyage while another stays home and ages more quickly.

I suppose what I'm driving at is that, if you have time, I'd like to read your rant!

[nightspore]

Just fascinating.

[harvey_rrit]

I see this as one more reason for having all my stuff delivered to the house so I don't have to go outside.

Hmm.

Is Amazon funding this study?

[steepholm]

On the other hand, self-driving cars stay well below the alcohol limit, so maybe it evens out.

[harvey_rrit]

I dunno about you, but where I live they put alcohol in the gasoline....

[heliopausa]

That's fascinating! Thank you.
Re: the people who are at the looking-after-passengers end of thing (as opposed to looking-after-strangers) - I'm thinking it's maybe not so much looking after your own (family, friends) as imperative duty of care of the guest (ie passenger = guest in your car)?

The part about not needing an honorific for your own company's head is pretty interesting, too. Is it only in companies as families? How would other quasi-families go - say, football teams and captains/coaches, or criminal gangs?

[steepholm]

That's a good thought about passengers being in the position of guests! It would certainly make sense in the context of many cultures, although I don't know enough about China to say if theirs is one of them.

All the examples you mention would count as "uchi" groups, I'm pretty sure. To use an honorific in connection with a group with which you are yourself associated is seen as self-praise, and hence no go.