Autonomy-Enhancing Technologies? Automated Vehicles and Autonomous Mobility

Automated Vehicles (AVs) are often showcased as technologies that will considerably enhance the autonomy of their users. Indeed, mobility enables people to better satisfy crucial needs and pursue self-determined goals, thus representing a practical condition for the exercise of human autonomy. While manual driving excludes many (often vulnerable) social groups such as the disabled, the elderly, and the young, automated driving would include them among its users. Moreover, the delegation of driving tasks to AI systems would liberate travellers from the burden of driving, thus freeing time and energy for the pursuit of individual goals. However, the claim that autonomous mobility would be fostered by driving automation per se is a simplification that rests on a misconception of the “autonomy” of AVs. By criticizing techno-solutionist arguments presenting AVs as autonomy-enhancing technologies, this chapter aims at stressing the irreducible socio-political nature of the challenge of supporting human autonomy through transport innovation.