Source-linked AI summary
Governing autonomous vehicles: emerging responses for safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry risks
Araz Taeihagh, Hazel Si Min Lim
TL;DR
Autonomous vehicles create governance questions around technological risks, including safety, liability, privacy, and cybersecurity. The paper reviews these risks and government responses, finding that most measures remain non-binding, while some countries have enacted targeted laws.
Problem
The paper addresses limited clarity about how governments should govern AV technological risks, including unresolved liability, safety, privacy, and cybersecurity issues.
Method
The study identifies AV risks through literature review and examines government responses using a framework of governance strategies.
Results
Most governments adopted non-mandatory testing guidance and working groups, while the UK and Germany enacted liability laws and several countries used non-AV-specific privacy and cybersecurity legislation.
Takeaways & Limitations
Government responses generally favor gradual, light-touch governance of AV risks while technological development remains at an early stage.
Takeaways & Limitations
Regulators have not agreed on an acceptable level of AV safety or defined legitimate methods for determining it.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
The benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) are widely acknowledged, but there are concerns about the extent of these benefits and AV risks and unintended consequences. In this article, we first examine AVs and different categories of the technological risks associated with them. We then explore strategies that can be adopted to address these risks, and explore emerging responses by governments for addressing AV risks. Our analyses reveal that, thus far, governments have in most instances avoided stringent measures in order to promote AV developments and the majority of responses are non-binding and focus on creating councils or working groups to better explore AV implications. The US has been active in introducing legislations to address issues related to privacy and cybersecurity. The UK and Germany, in particular, have enacted laws to address liability issues, other countries mostly acknowledge these issues, but have yet to implement specific strategies. To address privacy and cybersecurity risks strategies ranging from introduction or amendment of non-AV specific legislation to creating working groups have been adopted. Much less attention has been paid to issues such as environmental and employment risks, although a few governments have begun programmes to retrain workers who might be negatively affected.
Methodology
The study used a two-step methodology to identify AV-related implications and associated risks, then examine government measures addressing those risks. It combined database searches of research published from 2000 onward with supplementary news, government reports, and policy documents.
- Methodology: The methodology first identified prominent AV-related implications through a preliminary literature review and exploration of key factors.Risks were searched using combinations of AV-related terms and implication keywords, with Boolean operators including AND, OR, and NOT.
- Methodology: Research published from 2000 onward was collected from Scopus, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Springer.Google Scholar was used only when the academic databases yielded limited or no results for specific AV implications.
- Methodology: News articles supplemented background research, while government reports and policy documents identified previous, current, and future government measures addressing AV-related risks.Examples of news sources included NYTimes, The Guardian, and Reuters.
Background to AVs
Autonomous vehicles are part of a broader class of systems that make independent decisions under uncertainty. Their rapid development promises social, economic, mobility, environmental, and national benefits while creating technological risks that require governance.
- Autonomous systems: Autonomous systems make decisions independently of human interference and can do so under uncertainty, distinguishing them from mere automation.Such systems have been developed in domains including warfare, personal care, and transport.
- AV development: Companies are rapidly investing in AV software, research partnerships, and road testing, while governments balance AV development against accompanying challenges.Governments recognise the need to adapt to rapid technological advances but face difficulties reconciling strategic desirability with associated issues.
- Potential benefits: AVs promise major social and economic benefits, including greater mobility, improved fuel economy, and reduced congestion and pollution.These benefits support national objectives pursued by countries developing AVs.
- Technological risks: AVs also entail technological risks, understood here as unintended consequences arising from the technology, which the article examines through a governance lens.The article specifically focuses on governing these risks.
- AV classification: The SAE classifies AVs into five automation levels, with humans performing dynamic driving tasks at levels 1 and 2 and automated systems performing them from levels 3 to 5.Levels 1 and 2 are assisted and partial automation, respectively; level 3 is conditional automation.
AV risks and governance strategies
Autonomous vehicles may reduce human-error accidents but introduce new safety, ethical, liability, and governance risks. Governments generally favor light, non-binding or staged safety strategies while legal responsibility increasingly shifts toward manufacturers and other designers.
- Safety risks: At least 90% of vehicle accidents are estimated to result from human error, indicating AVs could reduce the largest cause of car accidents.AVs may also outperform human drivers in perception, decision-making, and execution.
- Safety risks: AVs introduce machine-error and behavioral safety risks, including reduced seatbelt use, less cautious pedestrians, and technical failures as system complexity increases.The 2016 fatal Tesla autopilot crash illustrates uncertainty surrounding AV safety.
- Governance strategies: Governments commonly adopt light or non-binding safety controls, including US voluntary assessments, UK testing guidance without legal status, and Australia’s non-mandatory guidelines.These approaches support AV development while frameworks for minimizing public-testing risks remain incomplete in some jurisdictions.
- Governance strategies: China requires human drivers to remain attentive during testing, while Europe generally confines AV testing more strictly than the US to private streets, predefined routes, or low speeds.China also restricts testing under actual road conditions until a road-test exemption framework is established.
- Liability and ethics: As AV occupants lose vehicle control, liability increasingly shifts toward AV safety and efficacy, exposing designers and manufacturers to lawsuits, reputational harm, and uncertain ethical responsibilities.In the US, liability-rule responsibility is largely delegated to states, and nationwide rules are not expected in the short run.
Industry influence
Autonomous vehicles threaten existing low-skilled and manual employment, particularly for drivers and mechanics, while Singapore frames employment disruption as an economic opportunity. Simulation studies also indicate substantial potential reductions in taxi-fleet size.
- Industry influence: AVs threaten many existing low-skilled, manual jobs, with drivers and mechanics especially vulnerable because their value derives from driving and they tend to be older and less educated.
- Industry influence: 10%: simulated Berlin taxi-fleet size if autonomous taxi services replaced traditional public transport.
- Industry influence: One third: simulated Singapore taxi-fleet size if autonomous taxi services replaced traditional public transport.
- Industry influence: Singapore signals an adaptation-oriented strategy by treating AV employment risks as an opportunity, including applications in street cleaning and a context of bus-driver shortages.
Conclusion
The study surveys how governments have responded to five technological risks associated with autonomous vehicles: safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry influence. Overall, responses have generally favored non-stringent or exploratory strategies, while attention to employment and other risks remains limited.
- Scope of the study: The study provides an overview of governance strategies adopted across countries for five AV risk categories: safety, liability, privacy, cybersecurity, and industry influence.Table 3 summarizes the strategies adopted by different countries for addressing these risks.
- Safety: Most governments have avoided overly stringent measures to manage AV safety risks, although safety may improve as deployment generates more real-world driving experience.Safety risks include less cautious behavior, system errors, and insufficient regulation of crash algorithms.
- Liability: For liability and insurance risks, most governments have shown no response or adopted voluntary guidelines and exploratory strategies before legislation.Unclear liability apportionment among occupants, manufacturers, and supply-chain parties can increase manufacturers’ liability and reputational risks.
- Privacy: Privacy responses include non-AV-specific data regulations and recommendations, with Australia additionally pursuing public consensus-building.AV data capabilities can enable advertising, user profiling, and location tracking, while regulatory provisions vary in the control given to consumers.
- Cybersecurity: Governments address cybersecurity through legislation, working groups, private-sector research funding, and cybersecurity principles for manufacturers.These responses reflect the vulnerability of AV communication networks to malicious attacks affecting cyber and physical security.
- Industry and other risks: Most governments have not addressed AV-related industry disruption, although Singapore has begun retraining programmes and some governments study environmental, congestion, and revenue risks.AV deployment may displace workers in public transportation and trucking jobs that are easily automated.