Keeping the driver in the loop: the ‘other’ ethics of automation

Banks, Victoria, Shaw, Emily and Large, David (2018) Keeping the driver in the loop: the ‘other’ ethics of automation. In Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association. pp. 1-10 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Automated vehicles are expected to revolutionise everyday travel with
anticipated benefits of improved road safety, comfort and mobility. However,
they also raise complex ethical challenges. Ethical debates have primarily centred around moral judgements that must be made by autonomous vehicles in safetycritical situations, with proposed solutions typically based on deontological principles or consequentialism. However, ethics should also be acknowledged in the design, development and deployment of partially-automated systems that invariably rely upon the human driver to monitor and intervene when required, even though they may be ill-prepared to do so. In this literature review, we explore the lesser-discussed ethics associated with the role of, and expectations placed upon, the human driver in partially-automated vehicles, discussing factors such as the marketing and deployment of these vehicles, and the impact upon the human driver’s development of trust and complacency in automated functionality, concluding that the human driver must be kept ‘in the loop’ at all times.

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