Technology assessment and the governance of automated vehicles: a Collingridge-dilemma or a lack in normative orientation?

ABSTRACT

It is often assumed, at least implicitly, that responsible governance of automated vehicles (AVs) requires more knowledge about the future development of the innovation and its potential consequences. In this context, technology assessment (TA) studies often refer to the so-called Collingridge-dilemma. This paper argues that, at least in the German case, a lack of knowledge in the sense of the Collingridge-dilemma is not the central challenge for the governance of AVs. The argument is developed on the basis of different types of knowledge for TA recently introduced by Armin Grunwald. The paper shows that responsible governance of AVs requires more normative and hermeneutic knowledge to better understand the directionality of the current system. More important than focusing on the possible consequences of AVs is a better understanding of how to overcome existing obstacles to the development of a broadly shared vision with effective goals for the German mobility sector.

KEYWORDS:

• Technology assessment
• automated vehicles
• Collingridge-dilemma
• directionality

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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Jens Schippl

Jens Schippl is Senior Researcher in the “Mobility Futures” research group at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), and lecturer at the ETH Zurich in the context of the MAS/CAS “Future Mobility”. His research focuses on sociotechnical processes of change, foresight and technology assessment in the mobility sector. He is particularly interested in the development of automated driving and its interactions with path-dependencies in the mobility system.