In the not-too-distant future, fully autonomous vehicles will drive our streets. These cars will need to make quick decisions to avoid endangering human lives—both inside and outside of the vehicles.

To determine attitudes toward these decisions, a group of researchers created a variation on the classic philosophical exercise known as “the Trolley problem”. They posed a series of moral dilemmas involving a self-driving car with brakes (刹车) that suddenly give out: Should the car change direction to avoid a group of passers-by, killing the driver? Or should it kill the people on foot, but spare the driver? Does it matter if the passers-by are men or women? Children or older people? Doctors or murderers?

To pose these questions to a large range of people, the researchers built a website called Moral Machine, where anyone could click through the situations and say what the car should do. “Help us learn how to make machines moral,” a video asks on the site.

What the researchers found was a series of near-universal preferences, regardless of where someone was from. People everywhere believed the moral thing for the car to do was to spare the young over the old, spare humans over animals, and spare the lives of many over the few. Their findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Researchers found that the 130 countries with more than 100 respondents could be grouped into three groups that showed similar moral preferences. And these preferences seemed to correlate with social differences. Respondents from collectivistic cultures, which “emphasize the respect that is due to older members of the community,” showed a weaker preference for sparing younger people.

The researchers emphasized that the study’s results should be used with extreme caution (谨慎), and they shouldn’t be considered the final word on societal preferences—especially since respondents were not a representative sample.

One evening in February 2007, a student named Paula Ceely brought her car to a stop on a remote road in Wales. She got out to open a metal gate that blocked her path .That’s when she heard the whistle sounded by the driver of a train. Her Renault Clio was parked across a railway line. Seconds later, she watched the train drag her car almost a kilometer down the railway tracks.

Ceely’s near miss made the news because she blamed it on her GPS device (导航仪). She had never driven the route before. It was dark and raining heavily. Ceely was relying on her GPS, but it made no mention of the crossing. “I put my complete trust in the device and it led me right into the path of a speeding train,” she told the BBC.

Who is to blame here? Rick Stevenson, who tells Ceely’s story in his book When Machines Fail Us, points the finger at the limitations of technology. We put our faith in digital devices, he says, but our digital helpers are too often not up to the job. They are filled with small problems. And it’s not just GPS devices: Stevenson takes us on a tour of digital disasters involving everything from mobile phones to wireless key-boards.

The problem with his argument in the book is that it’s not clear why he only focuses on digital technology, while there may be a number of other possible causes. A map-maker might have left the crossing off a paper map. Maybe we should blame Ceely for not paying attention. Perhaps the railway authorities are at fault for poor signalling system. Or maybe someone has studied the relative dangers and worked out that there really is something specific wrong with the GPS equipment. But Stevenson doesn’t say.

It’s a problem that runs through the book. In a section on cars, Stevenson gives an account of the advanced techniques that criminals use to defeat computer-based locking systems for cars. He offers two independent sets of figures on car theft; both show a small rise in some parts of the country. He says that once again not all new locks have proved reliable. Perhaps, but maybe it’s also due to the shortage of policemen on the streets. Or changing social circumstances. Or some combination of these factors.

The game between humans and their smart devices is amusing and complex. It is shaped by economics and psychology and the cultures we live in. Somewhere in the mix of those forces there may be a way for a wiser use of technology.

If there is such a way, it should involve more than just an awareness of the shortcomings of our machines. After all, we have lived with them for thousands of years. They have probably been fooling us for just as long.

It’s likely that you don’t think you have invited a spy into your home when setting up a new TV. But new Samsung, LG and Vizio smart TVs can record and share everything that is viewed, whether it’s a broadcast or something streaming from the Internet. And some smart TVs can even track what DVD you’re watching.

Your viewing habits are valuable information for marketers who might want to use the information to introduce new shows or add extra content about some products to the shows you are already watching. The ads are primarily pop-ups like the ones you see on your computer.

You might not realize that you allowed that data collection when you agreed to the long privacy policy during setup; with Samsung, it is 47 screens of text. LG and Vizio also ask you to sign away your privacy in thousands of words in fine print.

When Consumer Reports sent an email to the manufacturers to ask how they are using the technology, representatives for Samsung and Vizio didn’t make any comment. An LG representative said that the company isn’t using any data to send personalized ads and has no plans to do so. But Consumer Reports said that could change at any time.

You might think, “Well, why don’t I just turn those marketing features off?” It’s not always so easy. To stop manufacturers' tracking, you have to fight your way through menu settings. On an LG set, go to “settings”, then “options”, then “Live plus”, click “off”, and then close. With Vizio, it’s a voyage through three menus to turn off the box “Smart Interactivity”. With Samsung, it’s a similar trip to find the box “SyncPlus and Marketing” to disable it.

Consumer Reports said that disabling the marketing feature may cause you to lose offers of extra scenes which are related to the shows you’re watching. But maybe that's a small price to pay for knowing that what you’re watching remains private.