Publications
Publications
- 2021
- Cognition
Deliberately Prejudiced Self-driving Vehicles Elicit the Most Outrage
By: Julian De Freitas and Mina Cikara
Abstract
Should self-driving vehicles be prejudiced, e.g., deliberately harm the elderly over young children? When people
make such forced-choices on the vehicle’s behalf, they exhibit systematic preferences (e.g., favor young children), yet when their options are unconstrained they favor egalitarianism. So, which of these response patterns
should guide AV programming and policy? We argue that this debate is missing the public reaction most likely to
threaten the industry’s life-saving potential: moral outrage. We find that people are more outraged by AVs that
kill discriminately than indiscriminately. Crucially, they are even more outraged by an AV that deliberately kills a
less preferred group (e.g., an elderly person over a child) than by one that indiscriminately kills a more preferred
group (e.g., a child). Thus, at least insofar as the public is concerned, there may be more reason to depict and
program AVs as egalitarian.
Citation
De Freitas, Julian, and Mina Cikara. "Deliberately Prejudiced Self-driving Vehicles Elicit the Most Outrage." Cognition (in press).
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