Autonomous Vehicles Are Being Held Back by Fear. Why the Naysayers Are Wrong.

Last year, AVs were described in popular stories and in social media posts as “one of the most hyped technology experiments of this century.” They were deemed incapable of reversing the growing death toll on American roads for many years to come–if ever. And they were seen as inadequate to fix supply-chain problems.  Tesla CEO Elon Musk has often been the subject of barbs, to the effect that he exaggerates the capabilities of his company’s technology.  At the same time, his statements about Tesla capabilities are deprecated as not to be taken too seriously.

Musk’s overbold statements deservedly invite such criticisms. But instead of embracing a potentially revolutionary technology, as a supermajority of Democratic voters have, enthusiasm about AVs is discouraged by accounts that rally and reinforce fears of a new technology instead of encouraging policymakers to expedite its safe adoption.

New technologies have historically been the subject of various fears, including of bodily injury or death to consumers and of economic harm to industries using the old technology. Often, those fears have been politicized by stakeholders and industry incumbents and used to delay or attempt to quash widespread deployment of the new technology.  To take some well-known examples, 40 years ago, the specter of copyright infringement via videocassette recorders was claimed to herald the death knell of commercial television programming. Shortly after, digital audio media and home digital audio recording technologies were portrayed as fatal to the music industry.  As it turns out, neither set of dire predictions came true, while consumers benefited and the incumbent industries were forced to pivot and adapt to the new digital regimes, as well as face new competitors.

Currently, autonomous vehicles and the information technologies that enable them, most notably various forms of artificial intelligence, including neural nets and machine learning, are being demonized as dangerous technologies that may never be safe for motorists and pedestrians. But, as in the past, this demonization is a form of scapegoating. The anecdotes and examples presented as harbingers of grave harms from AVs and their use of AI wrongly attribute the risks from preexisting technical, economic, political, governmental, and societal conditions to the new technology. In fact, while the technology may exacerbate risks and make certain resulting harms more sensational, the technology did not create the underlying conditions that created the risk.

Policymakers pose a greater risk than industry participants regarding when, if ever, U.S. society realizes the huge potential benefits of autonomous vehicles. As described in Autonomous Vehicles: The Road to Economic Growth?, which one of us, Clifford Winston, wrote with Quentin Karpilow, the federal government has failed to act on its responsibility to establish AV testing procedures and adoption standards. In the process, automakers and technology companies have had to find their own way to get approvals from various cities and states to test their vehicles, while Musk has shrugged off test-reporting requirements, especially in California, where the DMV has looked the other way, according to the Los Angeles Times. By establishing his own proprietary testing procedures and adoption standards, Mr. Musk has hurt the overall reputation of AVs. The recent well-publicized concerns over Tesla drivers being distracted by video games while their vehicles are in motion and Tesla’s recent massive safety recall for vehicle design flaws also have hurt AV reputations.

Meaningful adoption of AVs will require all levels of government to plan and identify funding for costly investments in technology that would facilitate communications between vehicles and from vehicles to highway infrastructure and the road network. So far that hasn’t happened. Public authorities, not individual AV companies, will have to install and manage the technology effectively to facilitate mass use of autonomous vehicles on the U.S. road system. Finally, policymakers must remedy inefficiencies in highway infrastructure pricing, investment, and production policy, which have compromised nonautonomous vehicle travel for decades and must be reformed to enable autonomous vehicles to operate safely and efficiently on roads that are less plagued by congestion and potholes.

Despite the pessimism of some naysayer engineers, the global AV industry is working to improve its multiplicity of vehicles to operate safely in all types of weather and traffic conditions and to adequately address liability issues and possible cyberattacks. Indeed, Mobileye and Geely have teamed up to produce an autonomous electric vehicle that will, the companies say, be available for purchase and use in China in 2024. It will be interesting to see if they succeed. In any case, the U.S. appears to be behind China in its adoption of this critical technology and the US government seems oblivious or worse, indifferent,  to that fact.

Other naysayers may lament the demise of public transit, which won’t be able to compete effectively against AVs, yet overlook that AVs will greatly improve mobility, especially for low-income households, the elderly, and people with disabilities.  Others may lament the job loss of drivers in the seat, yet overlook that AVs are likely to increase employment by creating new types of jobs and expanding economic activity. 

The time has come to stop enabling those who fear autonomous vehicle technology out of self-interest and to encourage policymakers to do their part to benefit society by facilitating expeditious and safe adoption of AVs.

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