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private_messaging comments on [LINK] Utilitarian self-driving cars? - Less Wrong Discussion

7 Post author: V_V 14 May 2014 01:00PM

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Comment author: private_messaging 16 May 2014 06:59:07AM *  1 point [-]

Yeah.

There's an actual trolley problem - a very trivial one - hidden in it as well, though. Do you put your engineering resources into resolving swerve vs not swerve, or do you put that into better avoiding those situations altogether?

Of course, the answer is the latter.

This is also the issue with classical trolley problems. In the trolley problem as stated, subject's brainfart is resulting in an extra death. Of course a fat man won't stop a trolley! (It's pretty easy to state such problems better, but you won't generate much discussion that way)