Imagine you're watching a runaway trolley barreling down the tracks straight towards five workers who can't escape. You happen to be standing next to a switch that will divert the trolley onto a second track. Here's the problem. That track has a worker on it, too, but just one.
Zamislite da posmatrate voz koji nekontrolisano juri niz šine pravo prema petorici radnika koji ne mogu da pobegnu. Slučajno se nalazite pored poluge koja će preusmeriti voz na drugu prugu. Evo u čemu je problem. Na toj pruzi je takođe radnik, ali samo jedan.
What do you do? Do you sacrifice one person to save five?
Šta ćete uraditi? Da li ćete žrtvovati jednu osobu da biste spasili pet?
This is the trolley problem, a version of an ethical dilemma that philosopher Philippa Foot devised in 1967. It's popular because it forces us to think about how to choose when there are no good choices. Do we pick the action with the best outcome or stick to a moral code that prohibits causing someone's death?
To je problem voza, verzija etičke dileme koju je osmislio filozof Filipa Fut 1967. godine. Popularan je jer nas primorava da razmišljamo kako odabrati kada nema dobrih izbora. Da li da odaberemo akciju da najboljim ishodom ili da se pridržavamo moralnog kodeksa koji zabranjuje da uzrokujemo nečiju smrt?
In one survey, about 90% of respondents said that it's okay to flip the switch, letting one worker die to save five, and other studies, including a virtual reality simulation of the dilemma, have found similar results.
U jednoj anketi, oko 90% ispitanika reklo je da je u redu povući polugu, dopuštajući da jedan radnik umre da bi se spasilo njih pet, a i druga istraživanja, uključujući simulaciju dileme u virtuelnoj stvarnosti, došla su do sličnih rezultata.
These judgments are consistent with the philosophical principle of utilitarianism which argues that the morally correct decision is the one that maximizes well-being for the greatest number of people. The five lives outweigh one, even if achieving that outcome requires condemning someone to death.
Ovakva rasuđivanja su u skladu sa filozofskim principom utilitarizma koji tvrdi da je moralno ispravna odluka ona koja maksimalno uvećava dobrobit najvećeg broja ljudi. Pet života nosi prevagu nad jednim, čak i ako postizanje tog ishoda iziskuje osuditi nekoga na smrt.
But people don't always take the utilitarian view, which we can see by changing the trolley problem a bit.
Ipak, ljudi ne zauzimaju uvek utilitarističko gledište, što možemo videti ako malo izmenimo problem voza.
This time, you're standing on a bridge over the track as the runaway trolley approaches. Now there's no second track, but there is a very large man on the bridge next to you. If you push him over, his body will stop the trolley, saving the five workers, but he'll die.
Ovoga puta stojite na mostu iznad šina dok se pomahnitali voz približava. Sada nema druge pruge, ali se na mostu pored vas nalazi veoma krupan čovek. Ako ga gurnete preko mosta, njegovo telo će zaustaviti voz, što će spasiti petoricu radnika, ali će on umreti.
To utilitarians, the decision is exactly the same, lose one life to save five. But in this case, only about 10% of people say that it's OK to throw the man onto the tracks. Our instincts tell us that deliberately causing someone's death is different than allowing them to die as collateral damage. It just feels wrong for reasons that are hard to explain.
Za utilitariste, odluka je sasvim ista, lišiti se jednog života da bi se spasilo pet. Međutim, u ovom slučaju, samo oko 10% ljudi kaže da je u redu baciti čoveka na prugu. Naši instinkti nam govore da je namerno izazvati nečiju smrt drugačije nego dopustiti da umre kao kolateralna šteta. To jednostavno deluje pogrešno iz razloga koje je teško objasniti.
This intersection between ethics and psychology is what's so interesting about the trolley problem. The dilemma in its many variations reveal that what we think is right or wrong depends on factors other than a logical weighing of the pros and cons.
Ovo ukrštanje etike i psihologije predstavlja ono što je zanimljivo u vezi sa problemom voza. Ova dilema u mnogim svojim varijacijama otkriva da šta smatramo ispravnim ili pogrešnim zavisi od više faktora, pored logičnog vaganja prednosti i mana.
For example, men are more likely than women to say it's okay to push the man over the bridge. So are people who watch a comedy clip before doing the thought experiment. And in one virtual reality study, people were more willing to sacrifice men than women.
Na primer, veća je verovatnoća kod muškaraca nego kod žena da će reći da je u redu gurnuti čoveka preko mosta. Isto važi za ljude koji pogledaju komični snimak pre misaonog eksperimenta. U jednoj studiji virtuelne stvarnosti, ljudi su bili spremniji da žrtvuju muškarce nego žene.
Researchers have studied the brain activity of people thinking through the classic and bridge versions. Both scenarios activate areas of the brain involved in conscious decision-making and emotional responses. But in the bridge version, the emotional response is much stronger. So is activity in an area of the brain associated with processing internal conflict. Why the difference? One explanation is that pushing someone to their death feels more personal, activating an emotional aversion to killing another person, but we feel conflicted because we know it's still the logical choice.
Istraživači su proučavali aktivnost mozga ljudi koji promišljaju klasičnu verziju i onu sa mostom. Oba scenarija aktiviraju oblasti mozga uključene u svesno donošenje odluka i emocionalne odgovore. Međutim, u verziji sa mostom, emocionalna reakcija je mnogo snažnija. Isto se dešava sa aktivnošću u oblasti mozga koja je povezana sa obradom unutrašnjeg konflikta. Otkud ta razlika? Jedno objašnjenje je da pogurati nekog u smrt deluje u većoj meri lično, što aktivira emocionalnu averziju prema ubijanju druge osobe, ali osećamo konflikt jer znamo da je to ipak logični izbor.
"Trolleyology" has been criticized by some philosophers and psychologists. They argue that it doesn't reveal anything because its premise is so unrealistic that study participants don't take it seriously.
Neki filozofi i psiholozi su kritikovali ideju sa vozom. Oni tvrde da ne razotkriva ništa jer je pretpostavka toliko nerealna da je učesnici istraživanja ne uzimaju za ozbiljno.
But new technology is making this kind of ethical analysis more important than ever. For example, driver-less cars may have to handle choices like causing a small accident to prevent a larger one. Meanwhile, governments are researching autonomous military drones that could wind up making decisions of whether they'll risk civilian casualties to attack a high-value target. If we want these actions to be ethical, we have to decide in advance how to value human life and judge the greater good.
Ipak, usled nove tehnologije, vršenje ovakvih etičkih analiza postaje važnije nego ikada. Na primer, automobili bez vozača će možda morati da se bave odlukama kao što je uzrokovanje manje nesreće da bi se sprečila veća. U međuvremenu, vlasti ispituju autonomne vojne bespilotne letilice koje bi na kraju mogle donositi odluke da li će rizikovati civilne žrtve da bi napale metu od visokog značaja. Ako želimo da te akcije budu etički ispravne, moramo unapred da odlučimo kako vrednovati ljudski život i rasuđivati o opštem dobru.
So researchers who study autonomous systems are collaborating with philosophers to address the complex problem of programming ethics into machines, which goes to show that even hypothetical dilemmas can wind up on a collision course with the real world.
Stoga istraživači koji izučavaju autonomne sisteme sarađuju sa filozofima da bi se bavili složenim problemom programiranja etike u mašine, što ukazuje da se čak i hipotetičke dileme mogu na kraju naći u sukobu sa stvarnim svetom.