Multidimensional Preferences for Regulating Self-Driving Cars

• In Event: Regulatory Politics and Executive Leadership

Abstract

Effective governance of self-driving cars requires broad public support. Although policy-makers and practitioners agree upon the growing need to regulate the development of self-driving cars and the importance of regulation that is consistent with citizens' moral believes and societies' legal standards, there is little systematic evidence about which type of regulation citizens prefer and whether the public is sensitive to specific features of possible regulation regimes. In a conjoint experiment, respondents are asked to compare two hypothetical regimes regulating self-driving cars and to decide which regime they prefer. The regime profiles vary with respect to three substantive dimensions: (1) Safety (admission agency of self-driving cars and safety standards compared to conventional cars), (2) legal framework (liability for accidents caused by the autopilot and ethical prioritization and (3) autonomy (data protection and supervision of autopilot by the driver). The pre-registered conjoint experiment has been conducted on representative online samples for the USA (N=1,188), Japan (N=1,135), and Germany (N=1,174). While all three countries have a substantive automotive industry, the country selection also reflects cultural differences regarding AI and autonomous vehicles. However, across all samples, we find that citizens strongly prefer regulation that requires permanent human supervision of self-driving cars and stricter safety standards. Cross-country differences emerge on the safety dimension, as respondents from Japan and Germany see public authorities to be in charge of the approval of self-driving cars, while respondents in the US are more likely to accept industry self-regulation. Furthermore, in-depth sub-group analysis reveals that preferences towards self-driving cars' regulation are weekly affected by respondents' attitudes towards technology (technophobia) while their partisan orientation does not affect regulatory preferences whatsoever.

Authors

• Markus Stephan Tepe, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

• Sebastian Hemesath, University of Oldenburg