Autonomous cars and responsible innovation

Digitalization, a dominant megatrend in today’s global world, offers numerous intriguing technological possibilities. Out of these novelties, self-driving cars have rapidly come to be a primary focus; the literature categorizes them as a radical innovation due to the possibility that the mass adoption of self-driving cars would not only radically change everyday life for members of industrialized societies, but calls into question the infrastructural, legal, and social ordering of towns and numerous aspects of transportation in the societies that adopt them. Meanwhile, the results of several international surveys with large samples show that public opinion of self-driving cars is ambivalent, indicating parallel signals of enthusiasm and concern. The aim of this paper is to develop key components of a general strategy for addressing the societal challenges associated with self-driving cars as identified in international surveys and relevant literature and using the framework of responsible innovation.