Debating driverless futures: Anticipatory governance and responsible innovation for self-driving cars

2016年5月7日下午，在佛罗里达州威利斯顿附近，约书亚·布朗加入了世界道路死亡人数的长长名单。然而，他的死是不同的。他是他的车里唯一的乘客，但据我们所知，他不是在开车。他的车处于自动驾驶模式。他的特斯拉S车型上旨在保护他安全的技术没有看到一辆白色卡车正在穿过他的车道，背后是明亮的白色天空。布朗的特斯拉以每小时74英里的速度撞上了拖车，之后它离开了道路，撞上了一根柱子。如果汽车转向左而不是右，穿过对面的车道，世界上第一起致命的自动驾驶车祸可能会导致更高的死亡人数和更大的争议。自动驾驶汽车有望成为21世纪初最具颠覆性的技术之一。这项技术的爱好者认为，它可以解决残疾人获得交通工具、交通拥堵和每年数十万人在道路上死亡等问题，其中大部分是人为错误造成的。一些公司表示，他们最早将在2018年销售自动驾驶汽车。英国和其他地方的政府在确保经济增长和为民众创造新的高科技工作岗位方面看到了巨大的潜力。英国的工业战略将自动驾驶汽车列为优先事项，并增加了对机器学习技术的投资，这些技术将使计算机取代开车的人类。投资银行摩根士丹利预测，一个价值数万亿美元的全球市场将在“新汽车业范式”中带来数十亿美元的生产率提升。咨询公司毕马威将自动驾驶汽车称为“下一次革命”。一项新技术的典型做法是让社会事后才能了解其影响。对于自动驾驶汽车来说，这不是一个好主意。政策制定者、创新者和公众有可能梦游到一个科技加剧不平等、失去公众信任的未来。20世纪汽车的历史告诉我们，尽管技术可以带来巨大的好处，但它们也可能带来危害，并将社会锁定在新的生活方式中，而这种生活方式随后被证明是难以改变的。对于自动驾驶汽车，问题是，在这项技术成为我们日常生活的一部分之前，我们能否在这项技术出现之前，对它发展出一种更谨慎的方式。与其让创新“无人驾驶”，不如让创新者和政策制定者为他们帮助创造的未来负责。为了最大限度地实现自动驾驶汽车的公共利益，我们应该仔细审查目前正在进行的创新和政策。我们未来运输系统的工程设计太重要了，不能只由工程师来设计。有必要对自动驾驶汽车的机会和不确定性进行民主讨论。与其猜测消费者和公民的希望和恐惧，不如问问人们的真实想法。2017年，英国上议院科学和技术委员会得出结论，“显然有必要进行进一步的政府委托的社会和经济研究，以权衡CAV(互联和自动驾驶车辆)的潜在人力和财务影响。”但是，尽管目前对自动驾驶汽车的投资总额约为800亿美元，但几乎没有社会科学探讨自动驾驶汽车对未来交通运输可能意味着什么的公众观点。这项提案是世界上第一个重大社会科学项目，将公众声音带入关于自动驾驶汽车未来的辩论中。

In the middle of the afternoon on May 7th, 2016, near Williston, Florida, Joshua Brown joined the long list of fatalities on the world's roads. However, his death was different. He was his car's only occupant but, as far as we know, he was not driving. His car was in 'Autopilot' mode. The technology in his Tesla Model S that was designed to keep him safe failed to see a white truck that was crossing his carriageway against the bright white sky behind it. Brown's Tesla hit the trailer at 74mph, after which it left the road and hit a post. Had the car veered left instead of right, crossing onto the opposite carriageway, the world's first fatal self-driving car crash could have caused a higher death toll and even greater controversy.Self-driving cars promise to be one of the most disruptive technologies of the early 21st Century. Enthusiasts for the technology think that it could solve problems such as access to transport for disabled people, traffic jams and hundreds of thousands of deaths on the road each year, most of which are cause by human error. Some companies say they will sell self-driving cars as early as 2018. Governments in the UK and elsewhere see huge potential in securing economic growth and new high-tech jobs for their populations. The UK's Industrial Strategy has prioritised self-driving cars and increased investment in the machine learning technologies that will allow computers to replace humans behind the wheel. Morgan Stanley, an investment bank, forecasts a multi-trillion dollar global market with billions of extra dollars in productivity gains in a 'New Auto Industry Paradigm'. The consultancy firm KPMG calls self-driving cars 'The Next Revolution'.The typical approach to a new technology is for society to understand its effects only in hindsight. For self-driving cars, this would be a bad idea. Policymakers, innovators and the public risk sleepwalking into a future in which technology worsens inequality and loses public trust. The history of the car in the 20th Century shows us that, while technologies can have enormous benefits, they can also cause harm and lock society into new ways of living that then prove hard to change. For self-driving cars, the question is whether we can develop a more alert approach to the technology as it is emerging, before it becomes part of our everyday lives. Rather than innovation being 'driverless', we should look for ways in which innovators and policymakers can take responsibility for the futures they help create.To maximise the public benefits of self-driving cars, we should scrutinise innovations and policies that are currently underway. The engineering of our future transport systems is too important to be left to engineers alone. There is a need for democratic discussion of the opportunities and uncertainties of self-driving cars. Rather than guessing at the hopes and fears of consumers and citizens, we should instead ask people what they really think. In 2017, the House of Lords science and technology committee concluded, "There is a clear need for further Government-commissioned social and economic research to weigh the potential human and financial implications of CAV (Connected and Autonomous Vehicles)." But, while investment in self-driving cars currently totals around $80 billion, there is almost no social science exploring public views about what self-driving cars could mean for the future of transport. This proposal is for the world's first major social science project to bring the public voice into the debate on the future of self-driving cars.