Have you ever heard of the “Trolley Problem?” Well, basically, it’s a Philosophical question that asks you to imagine that you’re riding on a runaway trolley. Up ahead there are five workers on the track. You can’t stop the trolley, but you can use the track interchange up ahead to divert the trolley onto a different track. The moral dilemma, however, is that there is one lonely worker on the second track. So, do you divert the trolley and kill one worker, or do you stay on the same track and kill five? It’s a tough question because either way there is death, but it’s up to you to choose how much. This question goes all the way back to the Mid-1960s, but with self-driving cars a hop, skip, and a jump away from becoming a reality, that question has become excessively relevant again: Should a self-driving car prioritize passengers or pedestrians in the event of an unavoidable accident? So far Manufacturers have avoided the question like the black plague for obvious controversial reasons, but Mercedes, on the other hand, has recently given an answer to this question, and you might not like it.
