- Edited
Al_theGenie Good answer
As for your question... Ooooph... This is really gonna hurt me... I know what you're trying to say... The potential of life in the child is far greater than the potential of life in the 5 elderly retirees. Whilst there are more lives in the elderly group, there's only one life in the child's group... Hmm... The child has a lot more potential than the elderly people, however, the elderly people have a lot more unique knowledge than the child. I don't know if the AI would choose the greater number of lives, the greater amount of knowledge or the greater amount of potential. I've got a feeling the AI would choose the elderly because they two factors in favour of them, whilst the child only has one.
As for me, I'd probably choose to save the child. I know that's probably the cruel thing to do, but... thinking about it, I don't know why I'd choose the child over the elderly...
Ugh, sorry for the long answer again...
Related to your question, what if the 5 were normal children, with normal education and living circumstances, and the 1 was a child prodigy (who would definitely later grow on to be a leading scientist or something for humanity), the same age as them? What do you think you'd do? And what about an AI?