DRIVERLESS CARS: Regulation, Cybersecurity, and Liability

John Villasenor, a visiting scholar from UCLA, will host a seminar at the Marron Institute, titled "Driverless cars: Regulation, Cybersecurity, and Liability."

Driverless cars—or more formally, autonomous vehicles—have the potential to greatly improve highway safety. Realizing that potential will require engaging with a set of important questions on issues including regulation, liability, cybersecurity, algorithms, and ethics.

For example, with respect to liability, driverless cars can require a more complex analysis than in the past when apportioning fault for accidents. Cybersecurity challenges include providing the safety and efficiency benefits of highly connected and highly automated vehicles while also minimizing the vulnerabilities to cyberattacks that can accompany increased connectivity and automation. With respect to regulation, a key goal is identifying frameworks that can maximize autonomous vehicle safety while avoiding measures that inadvertently impede innovation and investment. And ethics questions arise in relation to the tradeoffs involved when choosing among multiple harms.

This presentation, which is intended to be highly interactive, will include a discussion of these issues and of how vehicle automation will impact the transportation system and society at large in the coming years. 

Light Refreshments will be provided. Please RSVP.