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Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles

Nature Human Behaviour volume 1, pages 694–696 (2017)Cite this article

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Self-driving cars offer a bright future, but only if the public can overcome the psychological challenges that stand in the way of widespread adoption. We discuss three: ethical dilemmas, overreactions to accidents, and the opacity of the cars’ decision-making algorithms — and propose steps towards addressing them.

The widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles promises to make us happier, safer and more efficient. Manufacturers are speeding past the remaining technical challenges to the cars’ readiness. But the biggest roadblocks standing in the path of mass adoption may be psychological, not technological; 78% of Americans report fearing riding in an autonomous vehicle, with only 19% indicating that they would trust the car1.

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Fig. 1: A schematic example of the ethical trade-offs that autonomous vehicles will need to make between the lives of passengers and pedestrians3.

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Acknowledgements

Support from the ANR-Labex Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse is gratefully acknowledged. I.R. is grateful for support from the Ethics & Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Azim Shariff

  2. Toulouse School of Economics, Toulouse School of Management Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Toulouse-1 Capitole, Toulouse, France

    Jean-François Bonnefon

  3. The Media Lab, Institute for Data, Systems and Society, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Iyad Rahwan

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  1. Azim Shariff
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  2. Jean-François Bonnefon
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  3. Iyad Rahwan
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Correspondence to Azim Shariff, Jean-François Bonnefon or Iyad Rahwan.

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Shariff, A., Bonnefon, JF. & Rahwan, I. Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles. Nat Hum Behav 1, 694–696 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0202-6

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