How, for example, might autonomous technologies help with road building or maintenance? Could we imagine starting with a machine that lays cones automatically and extending to a machine involved in resurfacing? And how might road users react to seeing such technologies in use by the side of the road? Then there is the potential management of people’s data. National Highways are an organisation that is most widely known for its infrastructure building work: roads, signage, smart motorways, for example. In a more autonomous future, what role could they play in shaping how data moves between the different parties that will become involved? The answers to these kinds of question point to a potential shift in the organisation’s role. A RANGE OF CONCERNS We ran workshops with National Highways staff discussing various aspects of this potential future. We worked collaboratively to think about the ethics of some of these issues, and to examine what they might want to happen. We used an approach called ‘backcasting’. The idea is that we explore different desired futures for an organisation and then work with them to think about concrete steps we can put in place now to enable them to reach that future. We also spoke to members of the public about how they feel about futures with autonomous vehicles, drawing on National Highways’ customer panel. We began with a survey which included questions about how people felt about autonomous vehicles (AVs), autonomous freight, and autonomous plant machinery. We received hundreds of responses. We found low levels of confidence in AVs among survey respondents, and a high degree of concern about safety implications of AV introduction. These worries related to the lack of human judgement, and that systems could be targeted by hackers. The potential for using AVs for maintenance work provoked a range of concerns over safety. 60% of survey respondents were concerned about the safety of drivers, but also 33% were concerned about the safety of the motorway maintenance workers. Although these results are just indicative, as it was not fully representative sample, we can see in these answers how questions of security and ethics become entangled. We followed up the survey with focus groups, again including members of the public. An issue that many were concerned about was the prospect of autonomous freight. If there are these, large, heavy vehicles being run autonomously, what happens if something goes wrong? There was not much understanding about who was responsible for ensuring the security and safety of these systems. When we asked focus group participants what they wanted in a future with autonomous systems, things became more nuanced. The people we spoke to saw that this technology could help, for example, people who have disabilities, opening new possibilities for them to be mobile. But others questioned if we should be supporting the expansion of car use in the context of climate change. It is interesting how when you ask these quite specific questions, people open broader social questions about the place for autonomous systems in this UK mobility landscape. THE FUTURE IS NOW There is a need for a conversation within organisations and within society more broadly about what matters most when we talk about responsible AI, and responsibility for autonomous assistance. In the Edinburgh Declaration on Responsibility for Responsible AI, drawn up by researchers working on Trustworthy Autonomous Systems projects, one of the four key shifts that they argue needs to happen is seeing responsibility as ‘relational’, rather than something tied to particular people or technologies. When we talk about an autonomous vehicle, we are not just talking about a black box that is driving on the road operating completely independently. It is existing in interaction with all kinds of things. One of the things that we talked about a lot with National Highways colleagues is the need to bring members of the public into the debates about these potentially quite different futures. Organisations will certainly require well thought through legal frameworks and information management protocols to generate public trust in autonomous systems. But they must also engage with the public and be ready to respond rapidly to an evolving landscape. Organisations need to be ready, and National Highways are working with us to ensure they are. FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 9 Dr Joe Deville is a Senior Lecturer based jointly in the Department of Organisation, Work and Technology and the Department of Sociology He is a member of the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Security (TAS-S) project, and is working with three other Lancaster colleagues on the National Highways collaboration: Professor Corinne May-Chahal and Dr Luke Moffat, from the Department of Sociology, and Professor Catherine Easton, head of Lancaster University School of Law. The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and is led by Professor Corinne May-Chahal and Professor Neeraj Suri. j.deville@lancaster.ac.uk
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