“As the federal government investigates Tesla Inc. for crashes involving its vehicles using the “Autopilot” feature, a new poll indicates much of the public has safety concerns about autonomous vehicles, though Americans’ interest in the cars has risen slightly compared to a few years ago.”
“Seventeen percent of adults believe AVs are as safe as regular cars driven by humans, up from 8 percent who said the same in 2018, although the number of people who believe self-driving vehicles are safer than regular cars has dropped from 27 percent in 2018 to 22 percent in 2021. “
“While Tesla’s AV crashes have received national attention from regulators and lawmakers, polling suggests that news of the NHTSA’s investigation – and the crashes themselves – has failed to break through to the general public.”
Media portrays a general distrust among public by continuously publishing news of crashes, AI failures and system bugs, distancing potential customers from the good statistics. The bad outweighs the good in modern media, pushing the belief that this technology would be inherently “evil”.
The first impression is a tough impression to break. “After respondents were told about the Tesla crashes and probe, the share who trusted AVs rose 1 percentage point, within the poll’s 2-point margin of error, while the share who lacked trust remained the same. Thirty-five percent said they would be at least somewhat interested in buying an AV in the next 10 years after learning about the Tesla crashes and probe, and 65 percent said they were uninterested.”
Amid Tesla’s AUTOPILOT PROBE, nearly half the public thinks autonomous vehicles are less safe than normal cars. Morning Consult. (2021, September 1). https://morningconsult.com/2021/09/02/autonomous-vehicles-safety-consumer-interest-polling/.
The study of this population’s relation to technology is an interesting counter study to how people enjoy and rely on their phones, that complete hundreds of automated tasks for them.
