Let鈥檚 say you have a small stash of face masks in your cupboard, set aside for you and your family.
Meanwhile, you鈥檝e read news stories highlighting the urgent PPE needs of your local hospital.
Do you donate some of your masks to the hospital? All of them? None?
Such is a moral dilemma under COVID-19, and one posed by a new international study led by the 91探花. The five- to seven-minute, anonymous is designed to gauge the perception of ethical situations as the pandemic evolves around the world. Respondents take the survey, add basic demographic details, as well as information about current restrictions in place in their community, and learn at the end how their answers compare to others.
鈥淧eople are making important decisions, big and small, in this time of COVID-19. Many find themselves facing moral dilemmas about 鈥榳hat鈥檚 the right thing to do鈥� in this situation,鈥� said , a 91探花psychology professor and co-director of the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. 鈥淭his helps us learn about similarities and differences in the opinions and feelings among people as we all cope with this unique event.鈥�
There are no right or wrong answers, researchers say, because the way each person responds may reflect the norms of where they live.
Ultimately, the research aims to help inform the ways artificial intelligence can become more attuned to cultural variations in how people think about decisions in health care settings, said , a professor in the UW鈥檚 Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and a co-director of the ,
鈥淭here is an urgent need to answer this question given the growing use of AI in medical contexts,鈥� Rao said. Human moral values likely vary from one culture to another, so 鈥淎I systems need to 鈥榣earn鈥� culture-specific moral values by interacting with humans, similar to how children learn their moral values.鈥�
The scenarios in the survey are based on classic dilemmas posed in ethics, social psychology and game theory, Rao said. In two situations, the respondent is asked to imagine themselves as a doctor and to make a potentially life-altering choice. In other scenarios, the respondent is a passer-by or a neighbor presented with a not-so-simple opportunity to help.
The survey is available on the virtual lab , which , an associate professor in the Allen School and co-leader of the study with Meltzoff and Rao, created for conducting behavioral studies with people around the world. So far the moral dilemmas survey has been translated into five languages, including Spanish, German and Farsi (with more to come), and participants have come from about 70 countries. Researchers expect trends in responses to reflect geography and culture, Reinecke said.
Researchers expect some differences among age groups, as well: The survey is aimed at people across a wide range of ages. LabintheWild doesn鈥檛 usually exclude anyone, Reinecke added, but the difficult nature of the pandemic, and the scenarios presented in the survey, prompted researchers to design it to be of interest to participants from 14 years of age to adults well past retirement. The researchers wanted to design the questions to be interesting to a broad set of participants, because the pandemic affects everyone in society.
鈥淲e hope to look at responses according to the country of the participant and their age in order to learn how people are thinking about this once-in-a-lifetime event,鈥� said Reinecke. 鈥淭his will help us be better prepared if this comes around again. And one feature of the work that people find fun is that we have a chart at the end where people can compare their answers to those given by others around the world. Most people find this fascinating and informative.鈥�
The study is funded by the UW, the Templeton World Charity Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
For more information, contact Reinecke at reinecke@cs.washington.edu, Rao at rao@cs.washington.edu or Meltzoff at meltzoff@uw.edu.