From the course: Data Ethics: Making Data-Driven Decisions

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Self-driving cars' trolley problem

Self-driving cars' trolley problem

From the course: Data Ethics: Making Data-Driven Decisions

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Self-driving cars' trolley problem

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- In the 1960s, an English philosopher named Phillipa Foot came up with an ethical thought experiment. It's commonly known as the trolley problem. So imagine you see a runaway trolley. There's a fork in the tracks, and in one direction you see five people sleeping on the track. They're unaware of the oncoming train. On the other track, you see one lone workman with their back turned to the trolley. Just a few feet in front of you, there's a lever that controls which track the trolley runs on. You can pull the lever and decide the correct moral answer. If you don't do anything, the trolley will fly by and head toward the five people sleeping the track. You can save these five people by pulling the lever, but then you'd kill the lone workman. So what's the correct moral answer? If you believe in Kant's deontological approach, then you can't ethically pull the lever. Kant says that killing people is always morally…

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