Self Driving Car Acceptance and the Role of Ethics
Mass availability of self driving cars is ante portas and independent of their sophistication, unavoidable fatal accidents will occur where the car will have to take life and death decisions. However, there is a knowledge gap, since the impact, that the ethical frameworks (used in the car's decision making process) have on the overall acceptance of self driving cars, is not well investigated. This paper addresses the key question: In the scope of unavoidable accidents, what is the effect of different ethical frameworks governing self driving car decision making, on their acceptance? This quantitative positivist research investigates the link of selected ethical frameworks, i.e. utilitarianism, deontology, relativism, absolutism (monism) and pluralism, to the acceptance of self driving cars. It is hypothesized that they have an impact on the acceptance of the self driving cars, and a model linking them to it is proposed and assessed. All five selected ethical frameworks investigated are found to have an effect on self driving car acceptance, which implies actions for several involved stakeholders as these may be a deciding factor for the success or failure of the self driving car market introduction.
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management