https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/24/18013392/self-driving-car-ethics-dilemma-mit-study-moral-machine-results

If self-driving cars become widespread, society will have to grapple with a new burden: the ability to program vehicles with preferences about which lives to prioritize in the event of a crash. Human drivers make these choices instinctively, but algorithms will be able to make them in advance. So will car companies and governments choose to save the old or the young? The many or the few?

A new paper published today by MIT probes public thought on these questions, collating data from an online quiz launched in 2016 named the Moral Machine. It asked users to make a series of ethical decisions regarding fictional car crashes, similar to the famous trolley problem. Nine separate factors were tested, including individuals’ preferences for crashing into men versus women, sparing more lives or fewer, killing the young or the elderly, pedestrians or jaywalkers, and even choosing between low-status or high-status individuals.