← All dilemmas
🤖technology
Should governments be permitted to bypass legal constraints and hack into private digital systems if it could prevent an immediate terrorist threat?
Vote to reveal how SplitVote voters split.
YOUR CHOICE
OR
Anonymous voting. No account required. Results update in real time.
Why this dilemma matters
Every new capability quietly removes a previous choice — the question is whether that trade is worth it. Choosing “Yes, because saving innocent lives justifies temporarily overriding digital privacy rights” prioritises what the system makes easy; choosing “No, because normalizing such intrusion erodes the long-term security and trust in digital systems for everyone” gives more weight to what it makes invisible.
Worth asking yourself
- What would you give up to keep this capability?
- Who benefits from this, and who absorbs the risk?
More Technology Dilemmas
- An AI generates a masterpiece painting with no human creative input. Who owns the copyright?
- A self-driving car's brakes fail. It must choose: swerve into a barrier (killing the passenger) or hit a pedestrian who jaywalked.
- Scientists can upload your consciousness to a computer perfectly. Your biological body must die in the process. Is the digital version still you?
- You can permanently delete all social media from existence. The world becomes slower and less connected, but global mental health improves 40%.