Autonomous vehicles are easily one of the most highly anticipated emerging technologies in the last several decades. Among their most storied benefits will supposedly be a reduction in the 35,000 lives that are lost on US roads every year. But saving these lives requires widespread public uptake. And that uptake, in turn, requires building public trust.
How can this trust be cultivated in a technology that is new, dramatically different from previous technologies, already haunted by driver and pedestrian deaths, and plagued by worries about algorithmic bias and the distribution of benefits? And what are the respective roles for technologies, social scientists, and philosophers, in addressing these concerns?