You’re a mining engineer, and you work at a site that has two working mineshats.

Question

You’re a mining engineer, and you work at a site that has two working mineshats. here has just been an earthquake, and the mineshats are all rapidly illing with water. here are ten workers, and all are in one mineshat, but you don’t know which (the probability that the miners are in each shat is 50%). You can either seal one of the shats immediately or wait for more information before sealing a shat. (If you seal the shat the miners are in, all ten will live; if you seal the wrong shat, all will die. If you wait for more information, you believe you can increase your certainty of the miners’ location substantially (though not quite to 100%)—but meanwhile 5 will drown. If your goal is to choose an action that will, in the long run, save more lives, what should you do?
You’re a mining engineer, and you work at a site that has two working mineshats. here has just been an earthquake, and the mineshats are all rapidly illing with water. here are ten workers, and all are in one mineshat, but you don’t know which (the probability that the miners are in each shat is 50%). You can either seal one of the shats immediately or wait for more information before sealing a shat. (If you seal the shat the miners are in, all ten will live; if you seal the wrong shat, all will die. If you wait for more information, you believe you can increase your certainty of the miners’ location substantially (though not quite to 100%)—but meanwhile 5 will drown. If your goal is to choose an action that will, in the long run, save more lives, what should you do?
You’re a mining engineer, and you work at a site that has two working mineshats. here has just been an earthquake, and the mineshats are all rapidly illing with water. here are ten workers, and all are in one mineshat, but you don’t know which (the probability that the miners are in each shat is 50%). You can either seal one of the shats immediately or wait for more information before sealing a shat. (If you seal the shat the miners are in, all ten will live; if you seal the wrong shat, all will die. If you wait for more information, you believe you can increase your certainty of the miners’ location substantially (though not quite to 100%)—but meanwhile 5 will drown. If your goal is to choose an action that will, in the long run, save more lives, what should you do?

Explanation / Answer

Expected number of people that can be saved if decision is taken immediately = 10 x (0.5x0 +0.5x10) = 10 x 0.5 = 5

Expected number of people that can be saved if decision is taken after waiting is dependent on information available and it is given that 100% accurate information won’t be available. Maximum number of people that can be saved even with 100% accurate information is 5. So, expected number of persons that can be saved is less than 5.

So, to save more lives, one of the shaft have to be closed immediately.

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