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Could an autonomous vehicle harm you?

Would you trust your life to an autonomous vehicle? Do you understand how it will respond in dangerous situations? Are you willing to get in without knowing the risks?

Professor Elena Moltchanova and Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck reviewed current safety information for using autonomous vehicles as part of their research into communicating risk and uncertainty in human-robot interaction.

“There’s a certain amount of risk involved when you step into an autonomous vehicle,” says Associate Professor Christoph Bartneck of the Human Interface Technology Lab New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ) in UC’s College of Engineering. “These machines are not perfect, they will fail and they will hurt people. People have already died in incidents involving autonomous vehicles as a consequence of how they were programmed.”

He explains the manufacturers of autonomous vehicles have a responsibility to clearly outline what the risks and uncertainties are when it comes to using this technology.

“Communicating risk and uncertainty is one of the most challenging science communication tasks because it’s based on advanced mathematical concepts, which people often struggle to understand,” he says.

Other scientific fields, such as medicine, face the same challenges, says Professor Elena Moltchanova of the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Engineering.

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