Even self-driving cars are affected by culture

Last updated on: March 11, 2020 at 12:39 am by Brad Vaughn

Even self-driving cars are affected by culture 2020-02-14T06:11:27-07:00 Brad Vaughn

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Credit:Grendelkhan

Here’s an article worth talking about around the coffee machine. The following introduces an article called “Should a self-driving car kill the baby or the grandma? Depends on where you’re from.”

In 2014 researchers at the MIT Media Lab designed an experiment called Moral Machine. The idea was to create a game-like platform that would crowdsource people’s decisions on how self-driving cars should prioritize lives in different variations of the “trolley problem.” In the process, the data generated would provide insight into the collective ethical priorities of different cultures.

They surveyed more than 40 million responses from 233 countries. Some outcomes are not surprising, like “participants from collectivist cultures like China and Japan are less likely to spare the young over the old.” Conversely, “Countries with more individualistic cultures are more likely to spare the young.”

The number of lives spared depends on culture as well. The article notes, “Countries with more individualistic cultures are more likely to spare more lives.”

In the original paper, the researchers even explored the affect of social status on people’s preferences.

“we observe that higher country-level economic inequality… corresponds to how unequally characters of different social status are treated. Those from countries with less economic equality between the rich and poor also treat the rich and poor less equally in the Moral Machine.

This relationship may be explained by regular encounters with inequality seeping into people’s moral preferences, or perhaps because broader egalitarian norms affect both how much inequality a country is willing to tolerate at the societal level, and how much inequality participants endorse in their Moral Machine judgments.”

What about gender? A interesting phenomenon emerged.

In nearly all countries, participants showed a preference for female characters; however, this preference was stronger in nations with better health and survival prospects for women. In other words, in places where there is less devaluation of women’s lives in health and at birth, males are seen as more expendable in Moral Machine decision-making.

There are several things we can take away from this study. For the moment, I’ll highlight just one. This research reconfirms a point I’ve made before.

Moral sentiments are greatly influenced by whether one lives in an individualist or collectivist culture.

In many cases, we cannot “objectively” or “authoritatively” state that one moral preference is more or less biblical. Also, the ancient biblical world was more collectivistic than ours; this suggests that we sometimes might misunderstand some of the Bible’s ethical impactions.

What say you?

Culture (General)

collectivism

individualism

Previous Post

March 5, 2020

What you can learn from #honortheology

Next Post

March 13, 2020 Honor, Shame, and the Coronavirus

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atonement Biblical Theology Book Reviews China Chinese Church Chinese Culture Chinese Language Collectivism Contextualization Culture (General) Ecclesiology Evangelism Gospel Honor & Shame (Face) Interpretation/Exegesis Justification/Righteousness Missiology Mission Methods One Gospel for All Nations Other Practical Contextualization Reading Romans with Eastern Eyes Resources Romans Salvation (General) Saving God's Face Seeking God's Face The Cross in Context Theological Contextualization Theological Education Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the last apostle to die?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter Paul James John

Books by This Author Books by Brad Vaughn

See All Titles »