IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2016 - 47
warnings. In addition, by virtue of the human being
present, the human may be made primarily or solely
legally responsible, putting them at a significant disadvantage compared to the technology manufacturer [17].
We do not yet have case law for assessing the division
of human-machine responsibility, and the issues are
very thorny indeed.
Another concern about the narrowness of the current technological visions revolves around daily mobility
practices. The effect of SDVs on mobility practices is
unknown. Despite assurances that they will save fuel,
save time, and so on, their use might in fact increase
the total distances traveled (as in a car-sharing model
they travel instead of being parked), time traveled and
so on, which would affect emissions. SDVs could bring
about a "speed hierarchy" in which the extra speed
gained from automation will command a premium
price. Geographies of access to mobility could appear -
such as those geographies of clean air shaped by electric car subsidies in California [21].
Wide deployment of SDV technology might create
inequality by pricing out certain segments of society,
and constraining the available set of transport alternatives. We know from studies of the transition to the
automobile in the U.S. that local residents objected to
cars because they saw automobiles as transforming the
street into a transport artery rather than a meeting
place. In the end, the residents were right, and local
trade and social life suffered [3]. Traffic flow was prioritized over the safety of pedestrians, beginning the trend
of a shockingly high rate of pedestrian deaths. In the
case of SDVs, the high cost of infrastructure could
deflect resources from alternatives such as public transport, walking and cycling, shaping urban land use even
more heavily in favor of cars [22]. SDVs could impose
scarcity of choice, time, and cost, making the traveler
merely a client of a service, not a citizen or a friend.
This client is a person who can only ask for better service in the form of more complex technological solutions, but not for social justice [23]. SDVs may then
reshape transport practices broadly along the lines of
those who can afford the use of SDVs and who cannot.
There is a danger that the scale of the infrastructure
investment necessary for widespread SDV deployment
would put further pressure on public funding, possibly
resulting in funding cuts to other critical public services
such as healthcare and education. In the U.S., the transition to the automobile demonstrates that a wealthy,
educated middle class consisting of planners, judges,
and entrepreneurs were able to define the use of the
automobile, including deciding who could drive and
where, and who would ride public transport [3]. Three
hundred million dollars was spent in the U.S. in 1906 to
build roads, redefining social geographies in and outseptember 2016
∕
side of cities [3]. More recently, the development of
"smart cities" that purchase turnkey big data solutions
has, in some cases, resulted in diverting public spending to finance the new "smart" technologies [24]-[26].
Other broader economic, institutional, and cultural factors come into play as well. For example, while SDV technology might be completely based on battery-electric
propulsion, sustainability of such energy systems is neither considered nor proven. SDVs may change the political economy of employment in sectors such as delivery
where higher speeds for delivery vehicles could enable an
increase in the distance travelled by goods purely for profit. As a result, retailers could have increased choice in
terms of potential suppliers. This could result in more
competition thus driving down prices paid, for example,
to local farmers.
Current development visions neglect a range of potential implications of the technology for civic values such as
privacy, harmony, and mutual respect [7], [27]. Reprising
Langdon Winner, a technology that is socially-constructed
to be totalitarian requires a police state to administer
[28]. Therefore, SDV technology, with the huge quantities
of data involved, could open the possibility of a police
state, or, some might argue, even more of a police state
than we already have. Such changes could shift the range
and nature of civic values toward totalitarian controls.
The automation and sensor technologies that characterize SDVs have military applications, and are found in military autonomous vehicles and drones. Therefore the
technological development of SDV technology may result
in a growing market for military applications-an unfortunate outcome, in our view. The military-industrial complex
is continually fed as corporations tap the military as a
nearly bottomless pot of money (in the U.S. at least),
encouraging the very socio-political complex we should
be dismantling rather than sustaining and strengthening.
Technology is being used to fight an increasing number of
wars abroad [29], endangering harmony with foreign
countries, and encouraging the use of war as an active
component of foreign policy. Without explicitly declaring
war, in their military applications the technologies
involved could enable the erection of barriers to mobility
across countries. Worldwide, 50-350 million people are
expected to be displaced by 2050 by crop failures,
drought, and wars caused by climate change [30]. Meanwhile, the U.S. and the EU are investing heavily in robots,
drones, and surveillance buoys [30] with the same sensor
and automation technologies, meaning that an SDV society could be one with more wars and less social and geographical mobility.
Finally, it is important to emphasize that a society
that uses forms of social control and discipline based
on surveillance and monitoring will almost inevitably
create new laws to support that social order. One
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