An autonomous car must save the young

If people are allowed to choose, they prefer that in case of an accident with an autonomous car, their life be saved rather than that of an animal, that more lives be saved rather that less and that young people are spared instead of aging. This is clear from a study published Thursday Nature .

When autonomous cars end up on the road, this kind of macabre dilemmas become topical. Suppose such a car can not save all the lives involved. Should an old woman stay alive or a young boy? The researchers wrote that automakers and policy makers were wondering how to solve such moral dilemmas.

We do not know how often such dilemmas occur on the road. Administrators who have had one may not have recognized it as a dilemma. Or they are dead. The researchers write that as rare as this dilemma is, you must know in advance what you want . And what the general public wants, even if you do not want to let them make that kind of decision. There must be support for that.

The researchers therefore developed Moral Machine, a free computer game on the Internet. Attendees always see the drawing of an autonomous car with zero or more people on board, driving in the direction of a number of road users on a zebra. The pedestrian light can also be red or green. Players must choose: does the car, for example, have to kill everyone on the zebra or hit a barrier, killing all the occupants?

Researchers analyzed nearly 40 million decisions made by citizens in 233 countries. There were three groups of countries (Western, Asian and South American), with some preferences being slightly emphasized: in Asian countries, for example, the relative preference for young lives was slightly lower.

Research is really a first step. More than two-thirds of the participants were men, most of them under 25 years old. The scenarios were limited: only two options (lead or avoid). Whether a person alive or not (even two options) is certain, all characters are strangers and are divided into a limited number of stereotypical categories. For example, the color of the skin, also a visible personal characteristic, is not included. The recording would have immediately resulted in moral objections. But yes: big, old and sports are there. This remains a cruel investigation.