Abstract
A human driver and an automated driving system (ADS) might share control of automated vehicles (AVs) in the near future. This raises many concerns associated with the assignment of responsibility for negative outcomes caused by them; one is that the human driver might be required to bear the brunt of moral and legal responsibilities. The psychological consequences of responsibility misattribution have not yet been examined. We designed a hypothetical crash similar to Uber’s 2018 fatal crash (which was jointly caused by its distracted driver and the malfunctioning ADS). We incorporated five legal responsibility attributions (the human driver should bear full, primary, half, secondary, and no liability, that is, the AV manufacturer should bear no, secondary, half, primary, and full liability). Participants (N = 1524) chose their preferred liability attribution and then were randomly assigned into one of the five actual liability attribution conditions. They then responded to a series of questions concerning liability assignment (fairness and reasonableness), the crash (e.g., acceptability), and AVs (e.g., intention to buy and trust). Slightly more than 50% of participants thought that the human driver should bear full or primary liability. Legal responsibility misattribution (operationalized as the difference between actual and preferred liability attributions) negatively influenced these mentioned responses, regardless of overly attributing human or manufacturer liability. Overly attributing human liability (vs. manufacturer liability) had more negative influences. Improper liability attribution might hinder the adoption of AVs. Public opinion should not be ignored in developing a legal framework for AVs.
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Notes
The original survey used the Chinese word (“责任,”zérèn), which is usually translated as “responsibility” and “liability” in English. In our context of traffic accident liability identification, we think the translation “liability” is more accurate. “Responsibility” takes many forms and might lead to confusion. In our article, we also used the term “legal responsibility” as it is equivalent to “liability.” To further reduce confusion, similar surveys should use “法律责任” (fǎlǜ zérèn; “legal liability” or “legal responsibility”).
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This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 72071143).
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Liu, P., Du, M. & Li, T. Psychological consequences of legal responsibility misattribution associated with automated vehicles. Ethics Inf Technol 23, 763–776 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-021-09613-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-021-09613-y