Autonomous vehicles (AVs) represent one of the single most significant events in the history of transportation.
Whether conservationists like it or not, companies such as Tesla, Waymo, and Uber are marching with force into this new realm of AI and robotics.
With the offerings of these vehicles, come increased safety measures, alleviated traffic troubles, and further efficient transportation systems. However, a key challenge in realizing this groundbreaking potential is consumer trust.
To realize the dream of widespread adoption of driverless cars, automakers will need to find a way to overcome some very real psychological and social barriers between you and comfort with your new robot chauffeur.
The Psychology Behind Trust in Autonomous Vehicles
The bottleneck for widespread consumer adoption of self-driving cars becomes a societal rather than a technological issue. That all boils down to the psychology of humans and your unwillingness to put your life in a machine.
In a lot of ways, the reaction to self-driving cars is kind of like our historical resistance to change in other areas. Such as it was when the tractor were first introduced in ag, many thought that they would put farmhands out of a job and questions arose about the dependability of these new machine-farmers.
Admittedly the jump to fully autonomous vehicles is not quite so pronounced, but for plenty that fear remains unchanged: an automated machine making its way along our streets and highways as it predicts danger and literally decides who lives or dies.
At the heart of this suspicion is a question of security. For some reason human nature, you feel safer when driving and in control even if we know that 90–95% of all accidents are because of humans.
However, by imposing full control over an AI system, you give it the power to make what are strictly unreliable decisions if a human were driving. While numbers might suggest driving would be safer in self-driving cars than by humans, it is still hard for car manufacturers to persuade drivers that data trumps human intuition.
Media and Public Representation
The public is largely getting their information on autonomous cars from what they read and see in the media. Awareness of high-profile accidents like the 2018 Uber incident can shape unfavorable public opinion for self-driving vehicles despite their otherwise remarkable safety record.
But as safety has improved and advances driven by AI continue, these incidents frequently find their way across the headlines only to perpetuate a narrative around AVs that fails catastrophically. The end result is a very difficult-to-dislodge narrative by reason of facts alone.
Also, a variety of narratives is at work in pop culture that has influenced our collective psyche with their grim images of autonomous technology as well as machines finally rising against humans. Both of these examples create an image in the mind’s eye of what driverless cars could one day mean, stoking public skepticism about this emerging technology.
Motor vehicle companies need to communicate openly about this, offering transparency on the safety procedures and tasks powered by AI besides communicating how much of it is still human-managed.
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Closing the Trust Gap Through Transparency and Education
Transparency and education are among the best approaches for automakers to earn the trust of consumers. Truthfully, the general public is still relatively ignorant about autonomous driving technology and fear of the unknown always brings its trouble. One way to allay fears is by simplifying the technology behind autonomous vehicles.
That said, educating potential customers on how sensors and a decision-making machine learning algorithm work can demystify the process and perhaps reduce some of the anxiety around it.
Worse, car companies have to be honest about the very severe range limits of how far their tech can take you. Demonstrating facts that autonomous cars can, sometimes, perform as expected and suggesting otherwise will lead to further disappointment when those expectations are not met would be overpromising what current state of affairs the technology offers.
Tesla, which refers to its systems as providing “full self-driving,” will need to make sure that these systems do not cause confusion over what their vehicles can and cannot safely be expected to perform. They will be setting their own expectations bar high and win the buyers’ trust by preparing them for what may go wrong there understanding that they have nothing to worry about.
How Experience Comes Into Trust Building
Giving consumers the chance to experience autonomous driving themselves is another critical way trust will be born. Order Reprints Today many drivers are skeptical of AVs because they have never experienced a ride in an AV.
By setting up test drives or ride-along, potential customers can actually see the technology’s function on a day-to-day basis. Such a hands-on demonstration could help to overcome some of the misconceptions and fears by demonstrating how well this vehicle is able to safely, navigate.
According to studies, familiarity is a key aspect of trust. So as people are exposed more and more to new tech, they just get used to it. Similarly, the consumer who was initially reluctant to adopt automatic transmission or lane-keeping assist as part of advanced safety features is now considering these a necessity. As more people have positive experiences of being driven by autonomous vehicles and come to rely on them, trust will follow.
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Social Acceptance and AV Trust
Other social factors are also significant influences on trust. Many times we look to our peers or network for what is safe and ok. The biggest way that experiences are going to spread is, of course, if early adopters go along with it and their experience speaks for itself — that going to be powerful both personally and likely outweigh any marketing campaign. Negative information, on the other hand, can quickly reverberate across social media platforms and foster deep-seated fear and suspicion.
By building A V user communities, automakers can take advantage of this social influence. Sometimes, the best marketing of all is a good reputation. Positive user testimonials, as well as a celebrity or industry signature, are another way to change people’s minds.
What This Means for Automakers
The path to winning over drivers is clear: build trust through transparency and resource centers, encourage real-world experiences of the technology, and offer more educational resources than ever.
Second, they need to realize the importance of social influence in order not only to increase their responsible communication with local communities but also how it will shape stories individuals tell themselves about why we are willing to use AVs.
Autonomous vehicles will only become mainstream if we can break through the sociological and psychological impediments that hold them back. With consumers starting to believe that these vehicles are safe, reliable, and capable of carrying them from point A to B without bumping into things or other people the potential for AVs will become a reality.
The biggest winners in this driverless revolution will be those automakers that place the highest value on consumer trust and are thus positioned to move people toward a future of drivers no longer needed.
