MSc Thesis: “VR for the Study of Moral Dilemmas involving Driverless Cars ”, Supervisor: Prof. Mel Slater (Grade: 86%). Exploited VR to get an insight on how people evaluate the morality of decisions a driverless car should inevitably make in moral dilemma situations.

1. Virtual Reality
for the study of
Moral Dilemmas
involving
Driverless Cars
Student: Marios Bikos
Supervisor: Prof. Mel Slater

2. What is a Moral Dilemma?
A moral situation, in which a choice has to be made,
between 2 equally undesirable alternatives.
 Thus, an agent is condemned to moral failure.
 No matter what, he will do something wrong.

3. Problem
• How should cars behave during moral
dilemma situations?
• Who should get to decide how they
should be programmed to react?
“One of the thorniest challenges in A.I*”
*Boer Deng. Machine ethics: The robot's dilemma. Nature: International weekly journal of
science, 523(7558):24{26, 2015.

4. Moral Machine by MIT Media Lab
• An online platform to gather a
human perspective.
• Shows pictorial representations of
moral dilemmas.
• People judge which outcome they
consider more acceptable.

5. Research by Bonnefon et al. (2015)
• Data-driven approach inspired by
experimental ethics.
• Inform the construction and regulation
of moral algorithms for AVs, not dictate
them.

6. People tend to respond to situations and events realistically!
Rovira et al. (2009), Pertaub et al. (2002), Slater et al. (2006)

7. Approach
Pilot Study (16 participants)
• Build a VR simulation, so users can experience a moral dilemma leading to
an accident, as the passengers of a virtual driverless car.
• Assess people's responses using questionnaire and
compare results with previous approaches.
• Insight on how people evaluate the morality of decisions.

8. Experimental Setup

9. Implementation
• Increased sense of embodiment using mirror reflections + hand tracking.

10. Virtual Environment

11. Virtual Environment
HMD Lab

12. Results – Presence Questionnaire

13. Participants prefer utilitarian driverless cars, even if this means sacrificing themselves.
Results – Moral Preferences

14. Results
“The experience was very immersive and absorbing.
I had the tendency to interact with the virtual interior of the car. At one stage, I even tried to open
the air-vents!.”
“I didn't expect my reactions to be so realistic.
I even closed my eyes before hitting the wall.”
“The reflection of mirror made me feel sitting in a car and
the same happened due to the sounds of cars passing by.”

15. Conclusion
◦ Results mainly exploratory, can’t generalize
our assumptions (small sample).
◦ Small inclinations spotted, suggest further
experimentation with VR.
Assess behavioral responses during the
VR simulation and then ask participants
what they were trying to do.
Introduce children in the backseat
measuring how moral calculus changes.
Increase even more their sense of
presence and embodiment using full
body and finger tracking.

16. Thank you!
Any questions?