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Human decision-making biases in the moral dilemmas of autonomous vehicles.

ABSTRACT: The development of artificial intelligence has led researchers to study the ethical principles that should guide machine behavior. The challenge in building machine morality based on people's moral decisions, however, is accounting for the biases in human moral decision-making. In seven studies, this paper investigates how people's personal perspectives and decision-making modes affect their decisions in the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. Moreover, it determines the variations in people's moral decisions that can be attributed to the situational factors of the dilemmas. The reported studies demonstrate that people's moral decisions, regardless of the presented dilemma, are biased by their decision-making mode and personal perspective. Under intuitive moral decisions, participants shift more towards a deontological doctrine by sacrificing the passenger instead of the pedestrian. In addition, once the personal perspective is made salient participants preserve the lives of that perspective, i.e. the passenger shifts towards sacrificing the pedestrian, and vice versa. These biases in people's moral decisions underline the social challenge in the design of a universal moral code for autonomous vehicles. We discuss the implications of our findings and provide directions for future research.

SUBMITTER: Frank DA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6739396 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Human decision-making biases in the moral dilemmas of autonomous vehicles.

Frank Darius-Aurel DA Chrysochou Polymeros P Mitkidis Panagiotis P Ariely Dan D

Scientific reports 20190911 1

The development of artificial intelligence has led researchers to study the ethical principles that should guide machine behavior. The challenge in building machine morality based on people's moral decisions, however, is accounting for the biases in human moral decision-making. In seven studies, this paper investigates how people's personal perspectives and decision-making modes affect their decisions in the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles. Moreover, it determines the variations in p ...[more]

PMID: 31511560

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Project description:While extensive research has been conducted on adults' judgments in moral sacrificial dilemmas, there is little research on adolescents. The present study aimed at: (1) adding further empirical evidence about adolescents' moral decisions (deontological vs. utilitarian) in sacrificial moral dilemmas and (2) investigating how these moral decisions relate with gender, school grade, emotional traits (callous-unemotional traits), context-related experiences (perceived parental rejection and community violence exposure), and moral-related factors (moral disengagement and universalism value). A sample of 755 Italian adolescents (54.7% females; Mean age=16.45, SD=1.61) attending the second and the fifth year of secondary school took part in the study. Two sacrificial trolley-type dilemmas (where harmful actions promote the greater good) were presented. In the "switch" scenario (impersonal sacrificial dilemma), the choice is whether to hit a switch to save five people killing only one person. In the "footbridge" scenario (personal sacrificial dilemma), the choice is whether to push a large man off a footbridge saving five persons. For each scenario, participants had to indicate whether the proposed action was "morally acceptable" or not. Data were analyzed performing generalized linear mixed models. Our results showed that: (1) Adolescents were more likely to indicate as admissible to hit the switch rather than to push the large man; (2) male adolescents, compared to females, were more likely to say it was morally acceptable to intervene in the footbridge dilemma, whereas younger adolescents said it was morally acceptable both in the switch and the footbridge situations; and (3) higher levels of callous-unemotional traits, perceived parental rejection, and moral disengagement, on the one hand, and lower levels of universalism, on the other hand, were associated to higher admissibility to intervene in the footbridge scenario. Higher community violence exposure was associated with a lower propensity to intervene in the switch scenario. Overall, the present study expands the research on sacrificial dilemmas involving a sample of adolescents. The findings support previous studies concerning the role of emotions in making moral decisions but, at the same, open new perspectives regarding the role of contextual experiences and moral-related factors.

Project description:Moral distress is common among critical care physicians and can impact negatively healthcare individuals and institutions. Better understanding inter-individual variability in moral distress is needed to inform future wellness interventions.ObjectivesTo explore when and how critical care physicians experience moral distress in the workplace and its consequences, how physicians' professional interactions with colleagues affected their perceived level of moral distress, and in which circumstances professional rewards were experienced and mitigated moral distress.DesignInterview-based qualitative study using inductive thematic analysis.Setting and participantsTwenty critical care physicians practicing in Canadian ICUs who expressed interest in participating in a semi-structured interview after completion of a national, cross-sectional survey of moral distress in ICU physicians.ResultsStudy participants described different ways to perceive and resolve morally challenging clinical situations, which were grouped into four clinical moral orientations: virtuous, resigned, deferring, and empathic. Moral orientations resulted from unique combinations of strength of personal moral beliefs and perceived power over moral clinical decision-making, which led to different rationales for moral decision-making. Study findings illustrate how sociocultural, legal, and clinical contexts influenced individual physicians' moral orientation and how moral orientation altered perceived moral distress and moral satisfaction. The degree of dissonance between individual moral orientations within care team determined, in part, the quantity of "negative judgments" and/or "social support" that physicians obtained from their colleagues. The levels of moral distress, moral satisfaction, social judgment, and social support ultimately affected the type and severity of the negative consequences experienced by ICU physicians.Conclusions and relevanceAn expanded understanding of moral orientations provides an additional tool to address the problem of moral distress in the critical care setting. Diversity in moral orientations may explain, in part, the variability in moral distress levels among clinicians and likely contributes to interpersonal conflicts in the ICU setting. Additional investigations on different moral orientations in various clinical environments are much needed to inform the design of effective systemic and institutional interventions that address healthcare professionals' moral distress and mitigate its negative consequences.

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Human decision-making biases in the moral dilemmas of autonomous vehicles.

Publications

Human decision-making biases in the moral dilemmas of autonomous vehicles.

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