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Ethical issues in focus by the autonomous vehicles industry

Author

Listed:
  • Andreia Martinho
  • Nils Herber
  • Maarten Kroesen
  • Caspar Chorus

Abstract

The onset of autonomous driving has provided fertile ground for discussions about ethics in recent years. These discussions are heavily documented in the scientific literature and have mainly revolved around extreme traffic situations depicted as moral dilemmas, i.e. situations in which the autonomous vehicle (AV) is required to make a difficult moral choice. Quite surprisingly, little is known about the ethical issues in focus by the AV industry. General claims have been made about the struggles of companies regarding the ethical issues of AVs but these lack proper substantiation. As private companies are highly influential on the development and acceptance of AV technologies, a meaningful debate about the ethics of AVs should take into account the ethical issues prioritised by industry. In order to assess the awareness and engagement of industry on the ethics of AVs, we inspected the narratives in the official business and technical reports of companies with an AV testing permit in California. The findings of our literature and industry review suggest that: (i) given the plethora of ethical issues addressed in the reports, autonomous driving companies seem to be aware of and engaged in the ethics of autonomous driving technology; (ii) scientific literature and industry reports prioritise safety and cybersecurity; (iii) scientific and industry communities agree that AVs will not eliminate the risk of accidents; (iv) scientific literature on AV technology ethics is dominated by discussions about the trolley problem; (v) moral dilemmas resembling trolley cases are not addressed in industry reports but there are nuanced allusions that unravel underlying concerns about these extreme traffic situations; (vi) autonomous driving companies have different approaches with respect to the authority of remote operators; and (vii) companies seem invested in a lowest liability risk design strategy relying on rules and regulations, expedite investigations, and crash/collision avoidance algorithms.

Suggested Citation

  • Andreia Martinho & Nils Herber & Maarten Kroesen & Caspar Chorus, 2021. "Ethical issues in focus by the autonomous vehicles industry," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(5), pages 556-577, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:transr:v:41:y:2021:i:5:p:556-577
    DOI: 10.1080/01441647.2020.1862355
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Gleb V. Savin, 2021. "The smart city transport and logistics system: Theory, methodology and practice," Upravlenets, Ural State University of Economics, vol. 12(6), pages 67-86, October.
    2. Qian, Lixian & Yin, Juelin & Huang, Youlin & Liang, Ya, 2023. "The role of values and ethics in influencing consumers’ intention to use autonomous vehicle hailing services," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 188(C).
    3. Tamakloe, Reuben & Park, Dongjoo, 2023. "Discovering latent topics and trends in autonomous vehicle-related research: A structural topic modelling approach," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Poszler, Franziska & Geisslinger, Maximilian & Betz, Johannes & Lütge, Christoph, 2023. "Applying ethical theories to the decision-making of self-driving vehicles: A systematic review and integration of the literature," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Li, Dun & Huang, Youlin & Qian, Lixian, 2022. "Potential adoption of robotaxi service: The roles of perceived benefits to multiple stakeholders and environmental awareness," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 120-135.
    6. Burak Can Altay & Abdullah Erdem Boztas & Abdullah Okumuş & Muhammet Gul & Erkan Çelik, 2023. "How Will Autonomous Vehicles Decide in Case of an Accident? An Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Best–Worst Method for Weighting the Criteria from Moral Values Point of View," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-20, June.
    7. Balázs Németh, 2023. "Coordinated Control Design for Ethical Maneuvering of Autonomous Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-22, May.

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