Abstract
The ideal of the self-driving car replaces an error-prone human with an infallible, artificially intelligent driver. This narrative of autonomy promises liberation from the downsides of automobility, even if that means taking control away from autonomous, free-moving individuals. We look behind this narrative to understand the attachments that so-called ‘autonomous’ vehicles (AVs) are likely to have to the world. Drawing on 50 interviews with AV developers, researchers and other stakeholders, we explore the social and technological attachments that stakeholders see inside the vehicle, on the road and with the wider world. These range from software and hardware to the behaviours of other road users and the material, social and economic infrastructure that supports driving and self-driving. We describe how innovators understand, engage with or seek to escape from these attachments in three categories: ‘brute force’, which sees attachments as problems to be solved with more data, ‘solve the world one place at a time’, which sees attachments as limits on the technology’s reach and ‘reduce the complexity of the space’, which sees attachments as solutions to the problems encountered by technology developers. Understanding attachments provides a powerful way to anticipate various possible constitutions for the technology.
Highlights
The narrative of autonomyIn 2005, competitors in the second DARPA Grand Challenge designed driverless vehicles to navigate unfriendly desert terrain
The simple idea was that giant leaps in artificial intelligence would enable computers, sensing the world around them, to take over the task of driving from humans
One of our interviewees, who had taken part in the DARPA Challenge, explained how the competition had created a philosophy of robotic autonomy that shaped the development of self-driving cars: You don’t get to do anything with the infrastructure
Summary
The narrative of autonomyIn 2005, competitors in the second DARPA Grand Challenge designed driverless vehicles to navigate unfriendly desert terrain. Attachments, technological narratives, responsible innovation, governance, self-driving vehicles
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