Navigating the governance challenges of disruptive technologies: insights from regulation of autonomous systems in Singapore

ABSTRACT

The proliferation of autonomous systems like unmanned aerial vehicles, autonomous vehicles and AI-powered industrial and social robots can benefit society significantly, but these systems also present significant governance challenges in operational, legal, economic, social, and ethical dimensions. Singapore’s role as a front-runner in the trial of autonomous systems presents an insightful case to study whether the current provisional regulations address the challenges. With multiple stakeholder involvement in setting provisional regulations, government stewardship is essential for coordinating robust regulation and helping to address complex issues such as ethical dilemmas and social connectedness in governing autonomous systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Autonomous systems
• regulation
• standards
• governance
• Singapore

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• O00
• O32
• O33
• O38
• I18
• K20
• L50
• L88
• L98

Acknowledgments

Araz Taeihagh is grateful for the support provided by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Conceptualisation, A.T.; methodology, A.T. and D.P; validation, A.T.; formal analysis, D.P, and A.T.; investigation, D.P. and A.T.; resources, A.T.; data curation, D.P.; writing and editing D.P. and A.T.; supervision, A.T.; project administration, A.T.; funding acquisition, A.T. All authors read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2023.2197599.

Notes

1. The system life cycle refers to the time period of activities that start when a system is conceived and end when it is decommissioned and disposed (like stages starting from commissioning, set-up, production, maintenance, repair, and ending at decommissioning).

2. Due to the uncertainty in the operation and difference in knowledge of users, hazard identification strategy is outlined by listing foreseeable hazards in the standards, and an elimination of hazards is carried out for risk assessment of the autonomous system.

3. Activity permits are of two kinds: Class 1 Activity Permit is required with an operator permit for non-recreational and non-educational purposes, or for UAs above 25 kilograms to be used for recreational purposes, or UAs above 7 kilograms to be used for educational purposes. Class 2 Activity Permit is required if the UA to be used for recreational purposes is 25 kilograms or below, or if it is used for educational purposes, it is 7 kilograms or below, and the conditions for usage are 1) operation altitude higher than 200 feet, 2) within 5 kilometres of a civil airport or military establishment, 3) within any restricted or protected area.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by Ministry of Education Singapore AcRF Tier 1 funding support and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.