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How safe is safe enough? Psychological mechanisms underlying extreme safety demands for self-driving cars

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  • Bonnefon, Jean-François
  • Shariff, Azim
  • Rahwan, Iyad

Abstract

Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) promise of a multi-trillion-dollar industry that revolutionizes transportation safety and convenience depends as much on overcoming the psychological barriers to their widespread use as the technological and legal challenges. The first AV-related traffic fatalities have pushed manufacturers and regulators towards decisions about how mature AV technology should be before the cars are rolled out in large numbers. We discuss the psychological factors underlying the question of how safe AVs need to be to compel consumers away from relying on the abilities of human drivers. For consumers, how safe is safe enough? Three preregistered studies (N = 4,566) reveal that the established psychological biases of algorithm aversion and the better-than-average effect leave consumers averse to adopting AVs unless the cars meet extremely potentially unrealistically high safety standards. Moreover, these biases prove stubbornly hard to overcome, and risk substantially delaying the adoption of life-saving autonomous driving technology. We end by proposing that, from a psychological perspective, the emphasis AV advocates have put on safety may be misplaced.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonnefon, Jean-François & Shariff, Azim & Rahwan, Iyad, 2021. "How safe is safe enough? Psychological mechanisms underlying extreme safety demands for self-driving cars," TSE Working Papers 21-1215, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
  • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:125618
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Itf, 2018. "Safer Roads with Automated Vehicles?," International Transport Forum Policy Papers 55, OECD Publishing.
    5. Azim Shariff & Jean-François Bonnefon & Iyad Rahwan, 2017. "Psychological roadblocks to the adoption of self-driving vehicles," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(10), pages 694-696, October.
    6. Fábio Duarte & Carlo Ratti, 2018. "The Impact of Autonomous Vehicles on Cities: A Review," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(4), pages 3-18, October.
    7. Kalra, Nidhi & Paddock, Susan M., 2016. "Driving to safety: How many miles of driving would it take to demonstrate autonomous vehicle reliability?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 182-193.
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    Cited by:

    1. Xing, Yingying & Zhou, Huiyu & Han, Xiao & Zhang, Meng & Lu, Jian, 2022. "What influences vulnerable road users’ perceptions of autonomous vehicles? A comparative analysis of the 2017 and 2019 Pittsburgh surveys," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Gordillo Chávez, Danitza & Cloarec, Julien & Meyer-Waarden, Lars, 2024. "Opening the moral machine’s cover: How algorithmic aversion shapes autonomous vehicle adoption," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).

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    Keywords

    autonomous vehicles; automation; algorithm aversion; safety; illusory superiority;
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