Intel Editorial: Passengers Have a Lot to Say About Self-Driving Cars – We Should Listen
October 18 2017 - 12:00PM
Business Wire
Trust is Just as Important as the Technology.
Maybe Even More So.
The following is an opinion editorial provided by Kathy Winter,
vice president and general manager of the Automated Driving
Solutions Division at Intel Corporation.
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Intel works to accelerate consumer
acceptance and build trust in the autonomous car future. One recent
ad includes basketball legend LeBron James. (Credit: Intel
Corporation)
Society’s fear of driverless cars is somewhat baffling to me.
Given that car crashes attributable to human error cause more than
1 million vehicle deaths every year1, it’s those human-driven cars
people should be afraid of. Yet all of us today get behind the
wheel and simply trust that the cars coming toward them in the
opposite lane will stay where they’re supposed to. From my point of
view, unless those are self-driving cars, we should all be
terrified.
Without a doubt, autonomous cars will be much better drivers
than humans. They won’t get fatigued like my aging parents on long
drives to visit family. They won’t get distracted like my
teenage/young-adult sons. They’ll have a 360-degree view and the
ability to precisely detect the speed and distance of other nearby
people and objects. And they’ll save lives; our research suggests
self-driving cars can be engineered in a way that cuts the fatality
rate by 99.9% - three orders of magnitude safer than today’s
human-driven cars.
Press Kit: Autonomous Driving
Why then, with so much promise, are people so afraid of them?
More importantly, what should we – the autonomous vehicle (AV)
industry – do about it?
At Intel and Mobileye, we believe passenger trust should be
factored into autonomous car design. That means thinking about the
relationship people have with their cars and ways to humanize that
relationship. How will people exercise control over their ride when
they no longer have a steering wheel and pedals, or no driver in
the front seat to direct where to go? How will the car explain what
it’s doing? What about safety and security?
With these questions in mind, Intel recently conducted a small,
qualitative study around the human-machine interface of an
autonomous car, in which a few lucky people experienced their first
ride in one. In spite of pre-ride apprehension, every one of them
felt more comfortable and less afraid of autonomous vehicles after
their trip. They acknowledged the obvious: Self-driving cars behave
better than they do. They also recognized the potential to improve
mobility for people who can’t easily get around today.
Practically speaking, we can’t do this with every person on the
planet before we ask them to trust the technology. But our study
offers suggestions for how we can deliver a trustworthy experience
that can be demonstrated broadly. And Professor Amnon Shashua’s
proposed Responsibility Sensitive Safety model for driving policy –
announced yesterday – is a good start towards engineering cars that
can be proven safe.
As I see it, societal acceptance will eventually determine how
quickly we reach our driverless future. It’s one of three things –
technology and regulation are the other two – that will ultimately
decide the fate of autonomous cars. We can build the very best
vehicles with flawless technology, but if the public won’t climb
inside, the industry won’t go anywhere.
We have the technology. Regulation and policy are on the way.
But for the AV industry to grow quickly, we need people clamoring
for self-driving cars and the safety and flexibility they will
offer. We need people to believe that a ride in a driverless
vehicle is infinitely safer than the risky driving they do every
day.
It’s our job – Intel, Mobileye, regulators and the rest of the
AV industry – to start building passenger trust into our AV
designs. Our success depends on it.
This is the seventh in an occasional series of Intel newsroom
editorials by Kathy Winter related to autonomous driving. To
comment or reach Kathy directly, email
autonomousdriving@intel.com.
1 World Health Organization, Road Traffic Injuries Fact Sheet,
Updated May 2017:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs358/en/. National Motor
Vehicle Crash Causation Survey, U.S. Department of Transportation,
July 2008:
https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/811059
and
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/12/human-error-cause-vehicle-crashes.
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Intel CorporationKathy Winterautonomousdriving@intel.com
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