“We will go a very long way.”

Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, a global automotive company, expressed the current reality of the self-driving industry after closing 'Argo AI', in which it invested nearly $1 billion over the past six years, in late October. Argo AI was a major and respected company that had gained renown in the industry for its safe approach to risky projects testing robots on public roads in at least eight cities in the U.S. and Germany, so the sudden decision to lay off 2,000 employees was even more shocking news.

Ford, which has decided to bring some of these engineers and technicians in-house, says it will focus on a clear technological bet focused on automated 'driver assistance', which is Level 2 and Level 3 self-driving. By shifting to a new goal of supporting technology that can be sold to today's car buyers,it has shown that implementing a strategy to break down the path to self-driving until consumers and society are more preparedis the best choice for future corporate performance and investor anxiety relief.

In addition, questions have been raised about the legality of self-driving technology in the industry. Tesla is currently promoting an upgrade called 'Full Self-Driving' while recommending that drivers keep their hands on the wheel, and is facing a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The phenomenon among users of sharing tips on how to use FSD features by putting a water bottle on the steering wheel so they can sleep while driving makes the Department of Justice's concerns a reality.

People perceive self-driving cars as what they can do after being freed from driving. It is clear that this is an area that current technological limitations have not yet reached. Therefore, the direction of necessary questions for the industry in the future is not about the technical completion of the system, but ratherabout the meaning that humans acceptIt could be. That is, the meaning of automation is not simply moving human roles to machine roles, but subtly reconfiguring the entire activity, changing the meaning of driving for those who participate or interact with it.

Of course, technological evolution always collides with the need for progress and reality. Society and the legal system always react one step behind technology. Real engineers face these dilemmas every day. However, this requires the following question before investing in technology.“So, what is this technology really for?”

Transportation Technology Services (TTS), headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, makes a product called Personal Signal Assistant, a platform that allows cars to communicate with traffic signals. Currently operating in 26 major North American cities and two European cities, the system has significantly reduced driver stress by allowing drivers to see the remaining time until the red and green light changes.

Thomas Bauer, CEO of TTS, which has partnered with a select group of clients, including Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, says that his company's products are very effective in improving the driving experience for drivers both before and after the completion of fully autonomous driving technology. However,it is difficult to attract the keen interest of investors because their technology still does not exclude the existence and role of the driver he says.

Are current investments in fully autonomous driving technology really providing the autonomy that drivers expect? What do people expect and give up as voluntary testers in the process of achieving technological perfection? If fully autonomous driving technology is perfected, will it be confirmed that people really wanted it?

If you enter search terms related to technologies such as blockchain, metaverse, and AI related to Google, you can see a fairly similar collection of images. In a sense, this is because many companies developing these technologies are truly confused about how to apply them to people in the most meaningful way. In such situations, a phenomenon-centric observation approach that is free from existing hypotheses and understands what is truly important to people from a holistic perspective, what are the real problems that related technologies can solve, is effective.

“How can self-driving cars build a relationship that helps drivers?” The industry needs to refer to the following three universal principles that ReD Associates, a consulting firm that suggests phenomenon-centric problem solving, presented as an answer to the above question in 2019.

First, not everything needs to be automated. People find subjectivity most important in higher-level strategic, identity-related work. For example, people expect automation to play a role in finding parking spaces at their destination, rather than technology that replaces the role of a fun father who curates family trips.

Second, automation should always be premised on maintaining a sense of people being able to check and control the overall situation. Drivers attempting Tesla's fully autonomous driving features experience a sense of wonder along with the tension of having to grab the wheel at any time.

According to a study published by Kempten University of Applied Sciences in 2018, traveling in vehicles with autonomous driving technology was found to cause more stress to drivers and passengers than traveling in conventional cars. This was mainly due to the unfamiliar feeling of relinquishing control of high-speed vehicles to machines and the fact that the system still tends to malfunction in certain situations. This anxiety of losing control, connected to mode confusion that causes cognitive confusion between automated and manual modes in aircraft operations, tends to elicit a negative response from humans to automation.

Third, the automated system interface should clearly define the limitations of the function. People often shout or ignore their signals when they interact with Alexa, Siri, or in-vehicle navigation. Personified interfaces create confusion in understanding the capabilities and limitations of technology, so people prefer to give instructions to clear, even if limited, interfaces, like they treat their own dog, who they know exactly what they have been trained for.

Car space, which no longer needs to be driven, will definitely have the opportunity to provide a completely different experience for people. The arrangement of seats no longer needs to be forward-facing, leading to innovative investments in the automotive manufacturing process, or fierce competition between automotive companies and OTT companies for in-vehicle media content partnership agreements.

However, on the other hand, we are also confirming that the optimistic promise of self-driving cars cannot magically solve the problem of more than 1.3 million road deaths worldwide every year. That's why the best topic for the present and future of self-driving technology development still seems closer to 'drivers aided by cars', not 'cars embracing humans'.

*This article is based on the original content published onElectronic Times named columnon December 13, 2022.

References

Ford Abandons the Self-Driving Road to Nowhere

Tesla faces U.S. criminal probe over self-driving claims

Elon Musk Abuses Tesla Autopilot

Driving experience vs. mental stress with automated guidance from the customer’s point of view

We Really Need to Talk About Mode Confusion

Autonomous Individuals in Autonomous Vehicles: The Multiple Autonomies of Self-Driving Car

The Human Agency Driverless Cars Must Preserve