Autonomous Individuals in Autonomous Vehicles: The Multiple Autonomies of Self‐Driving Cars. Issue 1 (18th January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: STAYTON, ERIK; CEFKIN, MELISSA; ZHANG, JINGYI
• Is Part Of: Conference proceedings. Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 92
• Page End: 110
• Publication Date: 2018-01-18
• Subjects: Ethnology -- Congresses; 306.3
• DOI: 10.1111/1559-8918.2017.01140
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1559-890X

Abstract

Abstract : We take the polysemy at the heart of autonomy as our focus, and explore how changing notions of autonomy are experienced and expressed by users of self‐driving cars. Drawing from work‐practice studies and sociomaterial approaches to understanding technologies, we discuss how driving as a task is destabilized and reconfigured by the introduction of increasingly automated systems for vehicle control. We report on the findings of a hybrid ethnographic experiment performed at Nissan Research Center – Silicon Valley, in which we video recorded interactions of 14 participants inside a simulated autonomous vehicle, and conducted semi‐structured post‐interviews. We look at the responses of our participants in light of three different themes of autonomy, which emerged through the analysis of the study data in the context of a broader program of ethnographically informed research: autonomy as freedom from the task of driving; autonomy as independence and individual labor; and machinic autonomy's ironic opposite, an increasing interdependence with human‐machine systems that raises new issues of trust and control. We argue that AV development will have to address the social dimensions of roadway experience, and that this will require a multi‐perspective approach (speculative work alongside other empirical examinations) to the specific ways human autonomy and sociality is aided, altered, or undercut by these systems.