People Want Self-Driving Cars That Save Lives. Especially Theirs

Would you buy a driverless car that is programmed to kill you? Ok, how about a car programmed to kill you if it's the only way to avoid plowing into a crowd of dozens? That's one of the conundrums an international group of researchers put to 2,000 US residents through six online surveys. The questions varied the number of people that would be sacrificed or saved in each instance--if you want to try it for yourself, see if you'd make a good martyr here. The study, just published in the journal Science is the latest attempt to answer ethics' classic "trolley problem"--forcing you to choose between saving one life and saving many more.