Solving the Trolley Problem

by Sujith Vijay

Ever since its first formulation by Philippa Foot in 1967, the infamous Trolley Problem has stirred up a lot of debate among professionals and amateurs alike. We outline a general framework to resolve this problem along with its many pesky variants. The book is aimed at a general audience and does not presuppose any familiarity with the battle between deontology and consequentialism that forms the crux of the problem. This is the first book in the Decision Making Under Uncertainty series.

80 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 17, 2018

Reviews

[Kristjanna Stevens]

A quick and fun read that challenges the way you think about the trolley problem and bring it to relevancy within our ever evolving and expanding culture by relating debates of ethics and moral philosophies to how we interact with, train, and expect AI to behave, in conjunction with our own general cultural morals and practices.

I definitely will want to gain a better understanding of Kant and the moral inertia principle in order to really understand why that would be a more moral or ethical philosophy to practice in relation to the trolley problem than others.

I also asked my two year old if she would pull the lever to kill 1 instead of 5 and she said “yeah” with zero hesitation. So there you have it. Trolley problem solved.