Safety priority choice and responsibility attribution in autonomous cars in Japan, China, and the United States

The first question (Q1) is to choose between the pedestrian-first setting and the driver-first setting of an autonomous car they are to drive. In Q1, Group A participants choose the priority of the (c)-type car (the private choice condition), and group B participants choose between the (a)-type car and the (b)-type car (the public choice condition). (See Appendix for details of the questionnaire.) The second question (Q2) is to probe the aspect of the accident the participants focus on in the case of an unavoidable accident involving an autonomous car with a victim. There, an autonomous car that prioritizes the driver’s safety causes an accident and kills a pedestrian. The question is who is responsible, the driver or the AI (or its design manager). Corresponding to the type of car mentioned in Q1, there were two versions of the vignette for Q2 for group A and group B (though this difference did not make any difference to the answers to Q2). The third question (Q3) was about the ideal car production for all groups, asking whether car companies should produce the (a)-type cars or the (b)-type cars.