6th Episode: The Moral Machine
From Machine Behaviour to Science Fiction Science and on the Role of Art in Science
In the sixth episode we explore the interrelations between humans and machines together with Iyad Rahwan who is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he founded and directs the Center for Humans & Machines. Our conversation will guide us from what experiments can offer with a view to challenging our assumptions about our individual and collective understanding of “being in the world” and where its limits are. Iyad reminds us of the importance of remaining conscious of the inescapable embeddedness of the knowledge we create in other disciplines and epistemologies but also encourages us to engage in more creative future “worlding” by turning to Science Fiction Science.
Additional Material:
- Awad, E., Dsouza, S., Kim, R., Schulz, J., Henrich, J., Shariff, A., Bonnefon, J.-F., & Rahwan, I. (2018). The Moral Machine experiment. Nature, 563, 59–64. doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0637-6
- Rahwan, I. et al. (2019). Machine behaviour. Nature, 568(7753), 477–486. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1138-y
- Rahwan, I. Shariff, A., Bonnefon, J.-F, Science Fiction Science, (in preparation for publication in 2025)
The Episode is also available on Spotify.

Anna is a PhD candidate at Humboldt University Berlin and holds a scholarship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation. She is currently working as a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law with the humanet3 research project, which is based in Berlin at the Centre for Human and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. She is a Co-Editor-in-Chief at Völkerrechtsblog.

Iyad Rahwan is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where he founded and directs the Center for Humans & Machines.