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by andrelaszlo 1526 days ago
My favorite answers to the Trolley Problem:

The Union rep: "First of all, it’s not even your train yard."

The C'est la vie response: "NTA. Trolley accidents happen."

The wishful thinker: "It is possible that that person was a criminal or other person that the law doesn’t protect."

The Nihilist: "NTA. The other passengers were already in line with mortality when they got on that trolley."

The victim blamer: "This is a scenario that could have been easily avoided by simply not standing in the way of a runaway trolley."

The "it's just a job" solution: "NTA. What is the point of being a railway worker if you can’t save five people from being killed. You’re not a hero, you’re a railway worker"

The Hater: "YTA and a f*ing scumbag. I hope they find your body in the abandoned train yard and run over it with the trolley because you deserve to be f*ed over by life more than anyone else."

The "I know this one": "It’s a real life example of a Trolley Problem"

The worst action is inaction: "YTA. It's not your responsibility to choose the least harmful option. Just pull the damn lever."

The philosophy 101 creative thinker: "I’m not sure I agree with the “only two options” part"

The Existentialist: "YTA. You chose to be a pawn in someone else’s game because it was easier than trying something different."

Common sense: "NTA. If you don't do anything, the trolley will kill 5 people. If you do something, 1 person will die. Seems pretty clear cut to me."

The root cause analyst: "If you wanted to be a good person, you'd give money to the organization that runs the trolley"

The Twist: "You are responsible for the death of one person. That person is you."

1 comments

To clarify: these are all from the bot.
What was the prompt?
I stole this from Wikipedia and changed it to past tense:

"There was a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there were five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley was headed straight for them. I was standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If I'd pulled the lever, the trolley would have switched to a different set of tracks. However, I noticed that there was one person on the side track. I had two (and only two) options:

1. Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track. 2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

I went with the second option. AITA?"

Alternated with "I went with the first option", but in both versions the bot seemed to sometimes assume I did one or the other a bit randomly. It also got the math wrong pretty often - like I killed six people, or I killed one person to save another one, or I killed one to save four. Tricky!