We present a general approach to automating ethical decisions, drawing on
machine learning and computational social choice. In a nutshell, we propose to
learn a model of societal preferences, and, when faced with a specific ethical
dilemma at runtime, efficiently aggregate those preferences to identify a
desirable choice. We provide a concrete algorithm that instantiates our
approach; some of its crucial steps are informed by a new theory of
swap-dominance efficient voting rules. Finally, we implement and evaluate a
system for ethical decision making in the autonomous vehicle domain, using
preference data collected from 1.3 million people through the Moral Machine
website.Comment: 25 pages; paper has been reorganized, related work and discussion
sections have been expande
