Abstract
In recent years, technological advancements in autonomous driving systems have progressed, and there has been active discussion regarding their social implementation. Autonomous driving technology is expected to solve various traffic problems, such as traffic accidents and driver shortages, leading to increasing expectations for this technology. However, there are concerns that such expectations may divert attention from urgent traffic problems that require immediate action today. This issue can be considered a form of “moral hazard,” which has been discussed in the field of climate engineering. In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey accompanied by information presentation and performed a randomized controlled trial to examine the potential for fostering moral hazard awareness through information presentation. The results showed that, compared to the control group with no information presentation, the group that received only information stating that autonomous driving technology is steadily being accepted by society demonstrated a statistically significant increase in moral hazard awareness. This included the belief that issues such as “driver shortages for buses and trucks” and “traffic accidents caused by human error” are not major problems because they will eventually be solved by autonomous driving technology. On the other hand, in the group that was presented with additional information indicating that human intervention is still necessary in certain situations, no statistically significant difference in moral hazard awareness was detected compared to the control group. These findings suggest that providing information about the current state of autonomous driving technology could foster moral hazard awareness, leading to a weakening of responsibility for solving existing traffic problems.
