← All dilemmas
🤖technology
You can enter a perfect simulated reality where you experience joy and fulfillment, but doing so means abandoning the deteriorating real world and the people suffering in it.
Vote to reveal how SplitVote voters split.
YOUR CHOICE
OR
Anonymous voting. No account required. Results update in real time.
Why this dilemma matters
Technology rarely asks for permission once it works, so the ethics has to land before deployment. Choosing “Enter the simulation to preserve your own happiness and avoid the external suffering” prioritises the capability it unlocks; choosing “Remain in reality to help others and face the collapse, despite the hardship” gives more weight to the agency it costs.
Worth asking yourself
- Could you reverse the choice if it backfired?
- Does ease here come at someone else’s expense?
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%.