Nature 563, 59–64 (2018)

Socially acceptable principles for machine ethics must take a cross-cultural approach.

Self-driving cars are under development and present a wealth of moral dilemmas with respect to mortalities caused by potential accidents.

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology designed an online survey entitled the ‘Moral Machine,’ open to all. This survey presented dilemmas such as whether to sacrifice old versus young people or women versus men in accidents involving self-driving cars.

There were moral agreements worldwide; however, differences could be attributed to modern institutions and cultural traits.