Autonomous and semi-autonomous self-driving cars in Sweden : Ethical considerations

Background. Today autonomous vehicles (AV) are a well-debated topic and manystudies try to understand or solve different ethical dilemmas concerning self-driving.There are legal issues and liability concerns that require clarity from a governmentfor any type of AV to operate on the road. The Swedish transport agency has notallowed autonomous cars because they do not fulfill the requirements to be classifiedas a safe vehicle and there are only a few studies in Sweden that focus on this topic. Objectives. This thesis will investigate previous research in this area to find outwhat are the most common topics that are a concern to people when it comes toAVs. Based on the findings from the literature review, a survey will be distributed,containing both qualitative and quantitative questions. Methods. A literature review has been performed to set up the base work for thesurvey. The questions to the survey were based on the findings from the literaturereview thereafter a pilot survey was distributed. The result from the survey will beanalysed by categorizing themes and keywords from the respondents. Results. The literature review can reveal that the most concerning categories according to people are safety, security, legal aspects & liability, and cost. The respondents to the survey indicate that safety is a high prioritized topic together with anylegal and liability aspects. The result also shows that there is a high expectationfrom the car manufacturers to make the vehicle secure from any attacks. As opposedto other research the Swedish respondents in this survey do not show much concernwhen it comes to costs. Conclusions. A common theme from the respondents shows that safety must beprioritized before any AVs can be released on the road, with no exceptions. Many ofthe respondents show that they trust the Swedish government and its legal systemwhich indicates that the acceptance of AVs could correlate with an acceptance fromthe Swedish transport agency. Though the respondents in the survey do seem to trustin the companies ability to provide a secure vehicle there are still some concernedabout the possibility of being a victim of a cyber attack. There are no concernsabout the cost of the autonomous technology amongst the respondents but it is notevaluated why and that leaves those results open for interpretation.