How people make moral decisions in the age of driverless cars

Issue #155: Why the Trolley Problem still matters in the age of Artificial Intelligence

Annie Duke, former professional poker player, expert on human decision making, and all-round brilliant person is one of our favorite thinkers. Annie is the author of multiple books, including Thinking in Bets, How to Decide, and, most recently, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. She also writes the Thinking In Bets Newsletter in which she explains how to make good decisions. We highly recommend subscribing if you haven’t already.

We decided to share a column from Annie in which she talks about the real world challenges of moral decision making in the modern age of artificial intelligence. In particular, she describes fascinating research about the moral programming people want in driverless cars. This turns out to be a really critical issue because no one wants to buy a driverless car that will make a moral decision they wouldn’t make (e.g., smashing them into a pole to save a stray cat). Annie explains how deeply human moral intuitions inherited from the selective pressure…