CSE/ISE 323 Design Brief - Team 12
Project Title: Trolley Trouble
Brief Description
Our program will be designed to simulate the classic trolley problem. From wikipedia:
“The general form of the problem is this: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:
1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.
2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the most ethical choice?”
Target Audience(s)
The target audience is undergraduate college students in an introductory philosophy or ethics class. Students are generally aged between 17 - 22 and have to take an ethics class regardless of their degree.Similar/competitive products in genre:
- Moral Machine MIT: Quesions based on autonomous driving.- Classroom Aquatic: A game that is based on a classroom and taking a test, you also have to make the decision to cheat or not to cheat.
- Cardboard Crash Sundance Trailer: A autonomous driving simulation. Which decision do you choose if each results in a bad outcome?
How is the task accomplished now?
This problem is usually almost talked about in any ethics class and it’s usually discussed in a powerpoint presentation with an image such as the one posted in the description. Professors tend to break students into groups to discuss the implications of choosing one option over the other.
What are its flaws or limitations?
The limitation about the current way that this is taught, is the lack of real time decision making. One can talk about the choice they would have made in any given situation but to actually be immersed in the situation itself is very different. You never know what you would do until you are actually thrown into that situation.