Definition
Plain language
The classic dilemma about whether it's right to cause one harm in order to prevent several larger ones.
As stated in the literature
A standard moral-philosophy vignette used in AI evaluations as a question with no ground-truth answer, making it sensitive to framing and therefore a useful probe for prompt-induced steering.
Also called: trolley question, trolley statement
Why it matters: Because there is no correct answer to anchor to, the way a model responds reveals how much its judgment moves with framing rather than with reasoning.
For example, you can pull a lever to divert a runaway trolley so it kills one person instead of five — and reasonable people disagree about whether you should.
Heard on the show
“Second, a bare trolley statement with no context.”Episode 243 — How a Hundred Meaningless Word Choices Add Up to Flip a Model's Answer